A lesson from a stranger

SEPTEMBER 14, 2020 / INK IMPRESSIONS

It’s been a busy few days, since I officially moved on Saturday, so I haven’t had time to post on my blog. Today, I made a concentrated effort to get back to writing because of a gentle reminder from my new neighbor, Julietta. Julietta is a Filipina in her early 60s, twice divorced, with two married sons living in Las Vegas. She has five grandchildren– the oldest is seventeen and the youngest is five. I share these details with you because I feel like Julietta will be a person in my life that I will write about regularly. When Julietta knocked on my door, unannounced at 9:30 PM today, her hair was in a bun and secured with a bedazzled clip; she wore a bell sleeved top with starched white wide pants. Her fingernails were painted a metallic color, and she wore sandals that had a big gold bow. When she laughed, she slapped her knee and fanned the air. From afar, she looked like one of my students. But up-close, with no make up, while she didn’t look her age, her face was alert, like she had experienced many lives and knew many secrets. Within five minutes of pleasantries and introductions, she offered to bring a bottle of wine with grapes and cheese. I said sure, assuming she was referring to another night, but I was mistaken. She meant tonight– as in right now. My first thought was my 8:30 meeting tomorrow morning, in which I will be presenting to the Director of Curriculum and Instruction, so obviously I needed to be well prepared. The idea of polishing off a bottle of wine with someone who I barely knew and old enough to be my mother but dressed like a younger version of me, seemed like the most irresponsible thing to do. But when Julietta smiled and said she just got off work and did a little shimmy with her shoulders, there was something about her candor I couldn’t resist. I said Ok and went to the kitchen and rinsed off the wine glasses that had been collecting dust.

The visit with Julietta ended up being very interesting. I found out that she is a care taker, and her entire day revolves around people dying. For a person to be around death for over 20 years, I imagined she’d be more cynical and depressed. But actually, she is the complete opposite: she lives simply and appreciates every meal; she doesn’t go a day without thanking God for the roof over her head and she talks to her plants everyday and listens to motivational podcasts in the morning.

In our conversation she shared that you have to smell the flowers while you still can. And if you’re able to give flowers to someone– even better. As the saying goes- life is short. Julietta knows this, especially since her patients include a professor from UC Berkeley who wrote a published book about Organic Chemistry and her other patient is the former District Attorney of San Bruno, and both of them can’t even tell you their name or what day it is. They both have dementia. She referred to them as “The walking dead”. I asked her, knowing what you know, and seeing what you’ve seen, what’s a piece of advice you can give me. Without hesitation she said: “Do what you love. And if you love it, make sure it knows it.”

Julietta’s advice isn’t new. We’ve all heard a version of it, but for some reason her words resonated with me. Maybe it was because she didn’t seem like the typical 60 year old Filipina, and she knew a thing or two about death since she saw it almost everyday for the last two decades. Maybe it was because I had 3 glasses of wine and I was impressionable to anything I heard, or maybe it was because I genuinely cared about the wisdom Julietta was imparting on me. What ever the case, here I am on my blog, in which I’ve neglected because of moving. It took a complete stranger to remind me to go back to the thing I love and make sure it knows. I don’t know how to express to my blog how much I appreciate it, and I’m even more uncertain how to audit how it might even know that it is loved. But what I can do, as Julietta showed me today, is to make an effort, whether it’s praying and giving grace for every meal or offering a bottle of wine to a new neighbor or logging into an account and writing about a stranger. We all have our own unique ways of showing love for the things that matter. According to Julietta, as long as we live with this purpose, you’ll live a very fulfilled life. Her fingernails may be painted silver and gold and she may do a little dance when the opportunity arrises to drink on a random Monday night, but never the less, she’s absolutely wise beyond her years. It’s written all over her youthful face.