Cindy, a parking lot and me.

A smack-in-the-face realization of what's truly important

I stared at the huge triangle-shape that was etched in the right side of her face.  I thought how fresh the scar tissue looked and how it would be a long time for that to fade; even a little.  She would want plastic surgery for sure.  She was only in her thirties but looked so much older.  Her teeth were stained yellow, her skin dull and leathery and her hair dry and brittle.  She spoke with a mountainous twang that made you know she’s lived this area her whole life.  Her general disheveled appearance made me think she must’ve lived a very hard life. She touches my shoulder while smiling and asks, “But you’re alright aintcha?”  She exhaled after dragging off her cheap cigarette and the smoke seemed to swirl around her head like a warm, fuzzy head piece.  It was so cold and through chattering teeth I managed to smile back and reply, “Yes, I’m alright, thank you.” I remember when I was little when it was cold outside and you could see your breath in the air, I would pretend to smoke.  Holding my fingers to my mouth then blowing out really hard.  They had those little candy cigarettes to make the imagery more real.

 

Stopping at the drugstore to pick up medication prescribed to ease the pain from my car accident, I noticed the Toyota Rav4 in the parking lot.  This was the very car I was going to travel out of town to see and possibly purchase this evening since I had just totaled my 2005 Maxima a few days before.  My husband suggested we talk to them and find out their feelings on the vehicle.  I got out of the car and approached a man with his baby in his lap.  He was trying to bounce her on his knee but his knee was nearly in the dashboard.  He was very friendly and didn’t seem to mind me asking him questions.  He puts the baby down to get out of the little SUV and he stood upright.  I thought I was looking at a giant!  No wonder he was scrunched in that seat!  My husband says, “Wow, you’re a tall guy!”  He smiles and says, “Yep, 6’6’’…that’s why this is my wifes vehicle.”  He opens the hood and discusses the “innards” with my husband when his wife Cindy approached the car.  She was very friendly and even offered to allow us to test drive her car to see if we liked it.  I liked Cindy instantly.  She threw her CVS bag jammed full of medication bottles in the car and then lit a cigarette.  She sighed loudly with almost a tone of relief when she exhaled the toxic fumes out of her lungs and into my face.  Interested in my story she asked me what happened. I explained that I totaled my newly bought Maxima a few days prior and how I bounced from tree to tree but lucky the trees were there because I could’ve flipped over a steep embankment.  Feeling comfortable with Cindy, I continued to whine to her that this was just the icing on the cake as my husband had totaled our other vehicle only a few weeks prior and that times were really hard.  We were only getting a ¼ what we paid for from his car and probably be upside down with my maxima since I financed the whole thing only 6 months prior and that we just needed to find me a vehicle that I could drive around in the snow that was reliable. I continued with that I didn’t understand how one family deserved so much devastation and felt like it just never failed….  my life was finally good for me for a change.  I am healthier and feel better than I have in years.  I have a good life with my husband and healthy, beautiufl children…..maybe it was just too good…things can never be too good.

 

Cindy listened patiently, shaking her head all the while and smoking her cigarette.  When I finally finished my rant to this person I just only met, I seemed to feel better.  Cindy threw her cigarette to the pavement and then squished it like an ant with her grubby looking Nike.  She lets out a big sigh and says, “Yes, I understand all about bad luck” and proceeds to tell me that her aunt had just died from cancer and that she was just diagnosed with Metastatic Melanoma.  She said, “I’m 38 and have an 18-month-old I can’t pick up because I’m afraid the bones in my back will break.  They gave me 3-6 months to live, but I’m gonna beat it….noone has ever beat Metastatic Melanoma but I’m gonna be the one…you watch me.”  She pauses long enough to light another cigarette.  Inhaling deep and then exhaling slowly she continues while pointing at the etched triangle in her face, “They told me they got it all out…all the cancer.  And I believed them.  They shook my husbands’ hand while holding my baby, looked him in the eye and told him I was gonna be just fine.  Now, it’s eaten away at the vertebrae in my spine.  But those doctors and nurses don’t know anything and they definitely don’t know me cuz I’m gonna beat it.”  Stopping momentarily to take another drag she continues, “I walked into a Baptist church Sunday morning and got saved.  I ain’t never been in that church and aint been in a church in a long time cuz I gave up on it.  I gave up on God a long time ago but you know what?  They took me right in and got me saved and they saved my husband and my girls, right then and there.  They embraced me in their arms like family and prayed for me.” 

 

I must’ve had a shocked look on my face because she asked me what was wrong.  I looked over at my husband still talking to her husband about the car.  I glanced in the car windows and saw just an innocent 18-month old baby looking back at me smiling unknowingly of her mothers’ fate or the difficult future she will be facing and then looked at Cindy with tears in my eyes.  I said, “Oh my God. I am so sorry.  I have definitely been humbled and can now see things in a different perspective.  I guess wrecking and totaling two vehicles in less than a month is not so significant anymore.  We both walked away virtually unscathed.”  Cindy smiled and said, "Well, I think God leads people like me into the lives of people like you to do just that.  Make you realize it could always be worse and be thankful for what you have.”  I hugged my new friend, this woman that I had just met.  I shook her hand with extreme gratitude and told her I would pray for her.

 

  My pity party was officially, over.

Author's Note

I've buried two vehicles in less than a month......but it certainly is better than burying a loved one isn't it????

Reviews

[An Ordinary Woman]

my God. That's horrific, Klyn. I'm so glad your all okay. And Cindy, my heart breaks for her, for them. It sure puts it in perspective, don't it?

I'm so glad I caught you- your story tonight. I needed to read it. Thank you Klyn.