I was in Chicago for a photography class, and a couple friends and I were wandering around to find a place for lunch. We decided to head for the Chinese buffet nearby. As we passed a homeless woman, she asked if we had any spare change for food, and since we only had debit cards, someone asked, "Why don't you just come to lunch with us?" She was surprised, but accepted.
I was a little uncomfortable at lunch, for which I still feel guilty. Rhonda, the homeless woman, talked a little about her past. She was in her forties--she'd been on the street for five years or so. She had two kids somewhere. She looked down at her plate and paused. "But I wasn't much of a mother to them." She said she felt like being homeless was a hole that you just can't reach high enough to get a handhold to climb out of. She'd stopped trying to climb out.
We didn't say much about our comparatively cushy college lives. The bill arrived, with requisite fortune cookies, and we all took turns laughing about our "mysterious strangers" and lucky numbers.
Then Rhonda slowly read her fortune, which said," It's not too late to change the path you've taken."
Everyone was quiet for a little while.
3 comments:
that's such a good story. so good you couldn't make that one up. i agree with steve, the best part about the story is that it's true.
It was pretty sobering. I remembered the story as I was reading through some old journals and came across it.
I wonder how Rhonda is, and whether she's been able to make a new start.
That is kind of eerie. I wonder if she ever decided to change her life.
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