Years ago right after we got married, Jim went outta town for work.
This was pre-Gromit and, in no hurry to get home to an empty house, I worked late. It was dark by the time I finally made it home and nearly there, I was shocked to find my street blocked off.
Police cars. Flashing lights. An ambulance. A grim-faced police officer waving me off.
What the hell is this? An accident?
Determined to get home, I went the long way around thinking I could circumvent the madness at the corner.
Denied. Again. Another cop waving me off.
Now I was more than a little alarmed. What happened must be pretty close to my house. Like thisclose.
Freaked me right out.
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Jeez Louise I sure hope all y’all weren’t judging me yesterday.
“But Hedy, you said Anna Nicole Smith was a money-grabbing bimbo. Given your past proclivities, shouldn’t you have just a little more compassion for her?”
Nope.
It’s one thing to screw around a little in college. It’s another thing to screw away your whole life.
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Turns out my neighbor’s dog had found a woman. Dead in her underwear less than 100 hundred yards from my house.
She was a prostitute. A junkie.
And she was my age. 32.
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Can people change?
I asked the 7:42 Crew yesterday.
To a person, they agreed that people can change.
They weren’t so sure about pedophiles. But they said that recovering alcoholics and drugs addicts are good examples of people who change.
They said that no one can force you to change, though. You have to do it yourself. You have to want to make a difference. You have to start making better decisions.
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Apparently the dead woman at the corner over-dosed somewhere in town and the highly compassionate and thoughtful men she was with took her for a drive and then dumped her in a ditch near the little patch of woods by my house.
Dead in a ditch at 32. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
We were born the same year, but like branches on a tree our lives grew in very different directions.
I thought about the decisions I’d made and if I hadn’t started making some really good ones after college, she coulda been me. Maybe.
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Now let’s flash forward to 2007. I’m 39. Anna Nicole Smith is 39. And she’s dead.
I’m hard on people like her because she could’ve made better decisions. She could’ve learned. She could've changed.
I believe that.
I believe that just like branches on the same tree, we have an obligation to keep growing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am listening to: The Fray – How to Save a Life
I am reading: Not much
And I am: So alive
2 months ago
3 comments:
Hedy, just wanted to pop by and thank you for rolling Blognonymous. I've added HedyBlog to my roll as well.
Now to the topic at hand... We used to have a pretty wretched homeless man who hung out on a sunny patch across the street from our flat (had a raised concrete stoop where he could sit)--dude stayed there and around the neighborhood for years. He was a fixture. One day he's shambled down to the nearest shopping area ('bout 5 blocks away) and was panhandling outside the coffeeshop where I was having a cup and doing some work, and one of the people he panhandled asked him his age--not sure how that topic came up. I overheard and thought silently, dude must be in his 50's or 60's. They guy replied, "36", my age at the time. I was shocked.
Life can be a lot harder than it is, and many of us need to be mindful of how easy we have it. Anna Nicole Smith doesn't get a pass in my book.
Kvatch! Welcome and thank you!
Hey, Girl....it is Susan and again our past paths intersect...Bretta, the dead woman, dumped in the field, was someone that I knew..and I saw a very different side of her - she was a mother, an insanely funny person and one of the best waitresses that ever wore an apron at Fantastico's in Batavia. She received my "Favorite Waitress" prize at my 40th Birthday Party that was thrown there....I never saw that other person - the drug addict and prostitute.....she made choices that left her daughter motherless and friends - friendless - for Bretta - she couldn't change in time.
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