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The Woman on Sunday Morning

Linda Blackwell Simmons

    There she was again, coming up the hill carrying the stained blue cooler, puffing for breath, carting more weight than she could bear.
    I had seen her a couple of times before on my frequent Sunday morning eight-mile walks from my home to a local park. On that particular Sunday morning, I spoke to her. It was about ten o’clock and, although long before the hottest part of the day, the heat was sweltering and my clothes were drenched—just as I like when I walk. The woman continued to struggle with the climb and the load she was carrying.
    “Are you ok?” I mustered up the courage to ask as my step was even with hers.
    She stopped, turned to look at me, and appeared surprised at my voice, but said nothing.
    “Do you need some water?” I offered my bottle but suddenly wondered how I would share it if she said yes.
    “No,” she replied, “I got water in my cart here.”
    “Do you live here...I mean, you know, here on the streets?”
    “Oh yeah,” she replied with a faint grin as her eyes finally met mine. “Yeah, I lived here in Fort Worth for almost ten years now. Come down from Oklahoma City back then, walked the first ten miles, and then caught a ride to the shelter up over on the next street...over there,” she explained as she pointed across a field, under the freeway, past the train tracks. “Second best thing I ever done I guess, coming to Fort Worth. So much better than Oklahoma, at least for people like me.”
    I wanted to know more, but afraid of prying or offending, I hesitated for a moment.
    “Where do you sleep and eat?” I asked wanting to further the conversation, but realizing I was starting to embarrass myself. “I mean I was just wondering where you eat and sleep?”
    “Oh, I have one of them mattresses you use in a swimming pool, and just sleep there in the park around the corner, and I get my meals at the mission. It works pretty good. I stay busy going back and forth,” she spoke as her smile widened.
    “I hope you don’t mind me asking you these questions,” I awkwardly continued.
    She said she didn’t mind at all, and that it was nice to talk to someone, that most people looked above her, to the side of her, or even through her, but very seldom at her. She spoke these words, looking directly at me, with the confidence of a strong woman.
    As the temperature approached the mid-nineties, we stood under an old live oak tree while a sudden breeze, although short lasting, came upon us and made the heat more bearable. I lingered there on the sidewalk listening to her answers, the words between us becoming more relaxed.
    With her gray hair pulled into a tight ponytail, her features seemed almost girlish. For a moment, I caught the face of a young woman, someone who had hope for life. But then the youth disappeared. When her smile faded, etches in her skin became permanent and the toothless spaces in her mouth revealed her years had not been easy. Her eyes were light blue and clear, much like the sky above us that Sunday. They belonged to a woman sure of herself, meek, but self-determined, a woman who had utilized self-reliance for the better part of her years—and surprising to me, a woman who liked herself. At first I thought her to be older than middle age, older than I, but realized as I continued to speak with her, she was probably younger. Her name was Iona, a rather sexy exotic name for a person on the street.
    “Do you mind if I ask you another question?” I continued. She shook her head sideways in reply. “Are you happy out here...without a real home?”
    “Happy? Oh, happy. Well, heck yeah, what would I do with a house or a room, just something to have to worry about. The gas station ‘round the corner lets me have all the free water I want from the restroom sink, and I got bath taking in that ‘ole basin down good. Long as I have my food and a place to sleep, I don’t worry ‘bout nothin’ else,” she reassured me.
    “Do you worry about crime down here where you stay...you know, like being attacked or something like that?”
    “No! Shoot what ‘a I have that anybody ‘ould want? They don’t mess with me. One time though about a year ago where I sleep at the park, there was an ole man, older ‘n me, and he started pulling at me, nothing bad, just bothering me,” smiling as she shared her story. “There ‘as some other men folk that came over and stopped him, got him right away from me. People stick up for each other out here.”
    At one time many long years before, she had a husband whom she loved, but he died of cancer at a young age. She had no parents, no children, no siblings, and, as far as she knew, no distant relatives. Her only friends were here, on the street with her. She and her husband lived in Oklahoma City when they were married and led a rather unremarkable, normal, existence there. At the end of that era is when she lost her way.
    Iona’s concern was her next meal, and she sometimes worried her pool mattress would be stolen from where she hid it in the park during the day. At that instant, for a moment, the thought ran through my mind about what I worry about at times—where my next vacation would be or perhaps what kind of wine I should buy for my upcoming party.
    “Well Iona, take care, it was nice talking to you. Maybe I’ll see you next week. This is my Sunday route. I turned from her and took a step forward but then looked back. “Oh, Iona, what was the first best thing you ever did?”
    “Huh?” she looked confused.
    “You said coming down to Texas was the second best thing you ever did.”
    “Oh yeah, my husband used to have a sayin’—‘Don’t breathe life into things you can’t change.’ I guess he taught me to be grateful for what I got. I learned not to want for nothin’. I just like what I got, so I guess that was what I done best, I made myself happy, ” she answered while displaying the wide smile I had seen a few minutes before.
    I smiled back and gave her a gentle wave, turned, and continued on my way.

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