Tonight at work this woman came through my line whose face was totally busted up, but was clearly healing, and she was walking with a cane, and had soup spilled all over her white blouse. She was young-ish, maybe 40, and immediately brought the spilled soup to my attention, and said how embarrassed she was that she spilled it everywhere, and that she had just gotten out of the hospital. She was shaky, unsure of herself, stuttered, couldn't remember the pin # on her debit card, had a lot of difficulty finding the correct words to say (she was struggling to even get complete sentences out), and told me that she had a brain injury. I wanted to say, "Hey, I know a thing or two about brain injuries," because my brother's had one for 14 years now, but I didn't; I kept mum. I wasn't sure how to react.
Anyway, she was getting really frustrated because she ran her debit card three times, and couldn't get the right pin, and I was already feeling really badly for her. She was upset that she was holding up the line, and that she couldn't remember, and that she was so shaky.
She said to me, "Austin hasn't been kind to me. I'm from Houston." Again, I didn't ask her to elaborate, and just assumed she had been in a car accident or something, but she added, "I was pushed down a flight of concrete stairs."
I think I literally gasped, and expressed my shock and how sorry I was, and then did ask, reluctantly, "On...purpose?" She looked up at me. "Yes. He's in custody now, but yes."
Anyway, we got everything straightened out, and she left, but I swear to God, I had to choke back tears the whole rest of the night thinking about that. That poor woman, and how her life has just been devastated because someone pushed her down a flight of concrete stairs!
Can you even believe that? It's insane! People really do that???
Man, it totally ruined my whole night.
No comments:
Post a Comment