“Darling, I wish you all the little bluebirds in the world…”
Who would’ve thought a 78 year old Jewish woman from the Bronx would be the love of my life?
Three years ago, I was working at a doctor’s office as a part-time aide. I pulled patients’ charts for the next day appointments, scanned medical documents, and organized incoming faxes for the doctors. But undoubtedly, my favorite duty was calling patients to remind them of their appointment. Most of the patients were well past retirement, and sometimes I would have to yell for them to hear me. Sometimes they would think I was their daughter. Other times, they would tell me all about their incontinence, flatulence, son or daughter – or their son’s flatulence and their daughter’s incontinence. Some would hang up without saying goodbye or thank you, and others would simply not understand why I was calling them.
Then there was Roslyn. She was my favorite. She would call me Booby, tell me I’m a doll and that she loved me. And for whatever reason, she turned into one of my favorite people in the history of the world. She would come in about every two weeks, and her appointment was always at 3pm. Every time I’d see her name on the schedule, my heart would jump and my hands would shake as I went to call her number. I wanted to talk to her for hours, and just listen to that quintessential NewYorkJewish accent call me affectionate names I’d never even heard of.
I always got off work at 1, so I had never met her – until my last day of work.
I waited around for two hours after my shift. When she arrived, everyone knew I was anxiously awaiting her, so they hollered at me to go meet my best friend. I peered around from behind the shelves of patient file folders into the waiting room – and there she was. I walked up in front of her and nervously stammered, “Hi, Roz, I’m Elizabeth, I’m the one who…” and she interrupted with a, “I know who you are, doll,” grabbed my hand, and pulled me to sit down with her.
We sat and held hands, like old friends, or family, or even some random 70something sitting with some admiring 20something year old super-fan.She asked me why the hell I was leaving and I told her I was working two other jobs and she promised to come visit me. We talked about school and the future and how her granddaughter is about to write her master’s thesis and how her late husband used to teach plant pathology at the university. She pointed to her oxygen tank and told me she was coming from her lung therapy appointment – only to cut herself off, mid-sentence.She squeezed my hand extra-tight, and looked me square in the eye with so much genuine love.
“Darling, I wish you all the little bluebirds in the world.”
And it was at this point, like a goon, I started crying. Why? I don’t know.Couldn’t tell you. Call me my emotional mother’s over-emotional daughter, but sitting there holding hands with my idol, she was everything I’d hoped her to be (minus the blue hair, diamond studded cat-eye glasses, and sequined sweater I’d always imagined). She told me this job at the office was too boring for me because I was too smart for it. And she told me she always talks about her peaches-and-cream that calls from her doctor’s office. That she’d miss me something awful. And that she loved me.
Turns out, I meant as much to her as she meant to me, however that happened and under whatever weird circumstance.
And maybe that’s why I couldn’t stop crying. Why even now, a few years later, I am overwhelmed with unexplainable emotion when I speak of her.I met this strangely amazing woman who gave me a kiss on the cheek and called me her dear, dear friend, and I never have ever, EVER doubted her sincerity or love.
At the time, I was in need of the realization of the person I wanted to be. I was a mess of an existence; maxed out working five months without a day off, sixty hours a week between three jobs, stressed out, on edge, depressed, and coming to a boil. Meeting Roz was like popping a zit of emotion or something gross like that, with all of this nasty stuff I’d been bottling up inside of me for absolutely no reason coming to a head and struggling to be freed.
I want to be like Roz. When it comes to the rest of my life, I want to be like Roz. I want to be that person you know nothing about other than notes in their doctor’s chart that you sneak peeks at every time you pull it to make sure she’s doing okay and find yourself so moved by her genuine kindness and whatever magic little spark there is inside of her that you feel it in those two minute phone conversations and it makes you infinitely better for holding her hand for five minutes.
As I sat there next to her, I couldn’t even find the words to tell her she was my favorite person – or maybe I did, but I was so wrought with emotion that I may have not said a single word the entire time. I called my mom crying to tell her I met Roz, tried to mask my emotion when my boyfriend answered his phone briefly, cried while I filled up my car at the gas station, cried while I drove home, cried on the couch harder than I’ve cried in a long time, and am even crying again now as I write this.
It was the week after meeting Roz that my life began to shift and change (see: A Chronic Pain in the Butt).
Have you ever fallen deeply in love with a stranger? Even if it was only for a brief moment – like watching a little boy tenderly kiss his baby sister in the shopping cart at the grocery store. Or seeing a married couple in their 80s holding hands as they walk down the sidewalk. Or making a new friend and connecting with them so passionately, that after a week you can’t imagine living your life without them in it. I happen to believe that we each have a series of Soul-mates that we are meant to cross paths with in our lives. They each have a different lesson to teach – sometimes with a beautiful feeling, endless fits of laughter, or an inexplicable familiarity; sometimes in the most painful of ways. They touch us in a way that can’t be put to words.
These Soul-mates aren’t here as missing pieces to our life’s puzzle. They’re mirrors – they reflect back to us pieces of ourselves. Sometimes, it’s the part of us that we don’t want to be reminded of, and those are the people that usually drive us nuts. But what Roz reflected back to me of myself was powerfully touching to me. She showed me the compassionate, powerful, loving woman I longed to be. The way she spoke of her late husband made me realize I was not in the relationship I wanted to be in.That I was too smart for all these random mindless jobs I was trying to distract myself with. Her kiss reminded me of the pure love I have to share with so many people yet in my life.
And she reminded me that dammit, I’m worth all the little bluebirds in the whole wide world.
Who has touched your life? Pay reverence to their memory, and know they’re always with you.
And at the same time, recognize you may have touched someone’s life in such a way you never imagined…