This morning, as I am sitting in the beams of the warm, morning sunlight, I am reminded of Helen, an elderly woman from our church whom I used to take to her doctor’s appointments. I don’t really know how I came to be the one to do so; but I spent many days with her in her home before and after her appointments enjoying a cup of coffee or tea with a slice of toast or a cookie before leaving. “Good beautiful morning,” she used to say when she’d answer her door or her phone. It’s a greeting I often remember on beautiful mornings such as today and even on not-so beautiful mornings, because that would be her greeting to me regardless reminding me that “while everyday might not be a good day, there’s always something good in every day.”
Hanging with Sister Helen, as I called my time with her, used to test my patience. She walked slowly, barley lifting her feet as she stepped, her pace more like a slow drag. Pulling into her driveway on Pelham Street, I’d often take a breath to remind myself to slow down and not be in such a hurry. I had to lower my expectations of what I wanted to accomplish on days that I spent with her, otherwise frustration and irritation would set in. For example, while she always knew what day and time I would be coming to pick her up, she would wait for me to arrive before changing from her “house coat” to her sweater or jacket. So, I’d often spend my time sitting and waiting for her as she got ready for her adventure of the day.
Her home, though she was old, felt and smelled new as her daughter whom she lived with renovated the main level to accommodate her mom’s limitations. I recall a beautiful granite countertop with three or four glass pendant lights in the small yet tastefully decorated kitchen. It was elegant but understated, and everything was always tidy and in
its place. I imagined nothing was ever left in the sink as she would always wash the cup or glass we sipped our beverage from and the butter knife she used to make our toast with blackberry jam – always blackberry jam.
“I love you beautiful brown people,” she would often say looking at me through her droopy eyelids. At first, I honestly thought she might racist; however, I would come to learn that Sister Helen was a white widow of a Filipino husband, that they married during a time when interracial marriages were illegal, and that she and her Filipino fiancé had to run off to another state to tie-the-knot. I would listen to more of her life stories over the course of our friendship, and often wondered what it would have been like to be one of her friends during her youth.
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