It's been a long trip and as soon as she sees me her eyes well up. I hug her, feel her brittle hair, smell the cigarette smoke on her skin. I've got good news for her, but it's the kind of news that will start her on another journey and it's scary and overwhelming.
She tells me her father was a taxi driver in the city for 40 years. He said if they ever got lost, they should head downhill. They would hit water soon enough, and if they couldn't find their way home from there, they deserved to stay lost. I know she has done a lot of hard things in her life, things with no endpoint, things with no clear reward, trying to deserve better than being lost.
What I am about to ask her to do will be the easiest hard thing of her life. But she won't know that until it is over and I get to hug her again.
posted by ttractor @ 5:57 PM
3 Comments:
i am so jealous of your job sometimes.
aside from the plane crashing times, of course.
It would be a hoot to switch jobs for a few days. And how are you, anyway? I hope you are preparing for some interesting changes...
i am so good! i am about to have a hoot by switching jobs for a few years. we somewhat commented about it over at my place-DC, lots more math stuff, very interesting-sounding work, but no longer non-profit (which is great in bank acct ways and not as good in liberal smugness ways)
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