Karen

I miss this lady. We worked together years ago at the café and began a friendship outside the workplace. She was in her late fifties when we met and was in the midst of a divorce from her dipshit, abusive husband. Her self esteem was in the toilet and she never seemed to believe that everyone at work genuinely adored her. As a young person, it's tough to know how to act around older co-workers. You never know if it's okay to curse or if they'll understand when we use slang. We all seemed to feel this way around Karen for the first week or so. Then one day, Justin told me that Karen came into the music cage and said, "You know, I'm a people person. I truly like people. I like helping the customers, walking them to the book they are looking for and putting it in their hand and seeing how pleased they are. I really like people. But that last customer was a real asshole." We all let out a collective sigh of relief - she was one of us!

When I was on unemployment (the most blissful time of my life!), Karen had a lot of doctor appointments in the city. Her vision was not great and getting worse and she was uncomfortable driving into Philly. I told her I had all the time in the world and would love to take her! That first month turned into a year and a half of visits, sometimes twice a month, sometimes a full day when she had surgery. We would have lunch after and in that time we became super close. In recent years, Karen seems to have retreated back to her solitude, back to ignoring her mail, phone calls, and not logging on to check her email. I am torn between continuing to reach out to her and letting her have her space. I hope she's healthy and happy and knows that she is loved. And I hope that her ungrateful sons have finally recognised the strong, beautiful, exceptional woman that is their mother and that they are finally treating her with real love and kindness. No one deserves it more.