5. Maeve

Disclaimer: As an administrative assistant/ customer service rep for a small, Midwest  food company, I talk to quite a few people from all walks of life. While I chose to keep details of my work life private, every now and then something exceptional happens that I can't keep in. In this case, that something exceptional was a woman named *Maeve.

At first she calls to thank the company for making such a wonderful food item. I get a 100 of these calls a week and while I'm grateful for them, they've all started to run together after a while. I expected this call to go the same as they always do- a greeting, the excited statement of gratitude for our product, some banter and then a hangup, but not Maeve.

Something about her voice tells me she's got more to talk about, and she does. From her weight loss since being on disability after working at the same company for over 30 years, to her lost cats, and the structure issues of her home she's lived in forever. She needed to let it out and I'm happy to comply.

"I've had it rough the past year, Darlin." She says to me in the subtle, slightly country twang I've noticed in people from Indiana and Ohio. "But I have a couple things that keep me going. I got my go-to food your company and my doggie. I'm grateful for the roof over my head and the people I call family, be them friends or actual family. You only need two things in this world-your go-to cure in times of grief, and the thing that keeps you goin. Do you have those things, Darlin?"

"I do," I reply, "My morning coffee and my writing."
"Atta girl!" she says. "Both great things!"

Our conversation continues and she's got a lot to say. I give minimal information about myself as your are taught to when dealing with the general public, but I'm all ears. She sounds like a cup of tea on rural roads. She looks like the same missing teeth of my mother and the saltiness of a blue collar woman. She was probably once a pub but is now a kitchen. She's this little piece of honestly I've been starved for because there's not nearly enough of it here.

And I'm dying to tell her my story as well.I want to tell her that I'm well versed in people with much higher means and they have no idea what this life is about, but she does. She can handle an awful hand better than any pro card player and she wears it, least by her conversation, like a dress somewhere between outdated and vintage-either way before or way ahead of her time.

 I want her to know that she is probably the kindest person who is not in my immediate circle that I will have the pleasure of speaking to for weeks.

"I can hear in the way you're trying to hide the inflections of your voice, that you haven't walked a pretty road either, darlin." She says to me. "But you have this sweetness about ya, that's why I felt the need to keep talkin. You keep that, ya hear? You fight tooth and nail for it, with your life if you got to."

And I will Maeve, if not for me than certainly for you, because you reminded me that my sweetness is something worth keeping- even in a dark city of strangers.

*Named changed to protect her identity.