A small, aging black woman. She came to me on the break during the transition management class. Everything she said could be summed up in the part of her story during which she said she had just recently quite dying her hair and had discovered that it was actually grey, not black.
"Everything's happening all at once and none of it is what I thought it would be," she lamented. She was drowning, but only in the sense of that we sometimes do, mid-progress.
"It's wonderful," I said.
"I know these things have been years in the making, but I'm only just now really seeing them. It's shocking," she replied. "What happened?" she asked.
"You woke up," I said.
"I woke up?"
"Yup, and sometimes that's shocking," I said. "But it's a cause for great joy and celebration," I suggested.
She stood, silently asessing the idea. "Thanks," she said, and I turned and left for lunch.
A few steps down the hall, I heard her shout to the empty classroom, "A cause for joy and celebration!! I'm writin' that down! A cause for joy and celebration!!"
Oh, what a story. I bet she won't forget. Maybe I won't either.
Posted by: beth | Feb 14, 2005 at 02:43 PM
Yeah, sometimes we have to have someone tell us the obvious, don't we? "A cause for joy and celebration...." Do you think she'll believe it when she wakes up tomorrow? Was it the little push that starts the sled on its exhilirating run down the big hill?
Posted by: Tom Montag | Feb 12, 2005 at 08:10 PM