three slices of orange.

orange u wondering what i'm gonna write about?

heh heh heh.

I met a nice lady today. A little frazzled-looking, older African American lady. I sat next to her on the bus and wanted to offer her a slice of orange that I’d brought from home. But we never made eye contact.

Later, I was sitting on the platform bench waiting for my train when, again, she sat down next to me on the bench. I thought, Here’s my chance. So I offered her one of my three remaining slices of orange.

She took all three. Thanks, she said.

She asked me how my day was.  5 minutes until my train comes.

Not bad, I replied. I inquired about hers.

Her answer was a long one. She’d sat for three hours at a dialysis machine, something she had to do at least three days a week. She’d suffered kidney failure two and a half years ago due to problems with her high blood pressure.

4 minutes until my train comes.

She continued. Never smoked, never drank, never did drugs. She has a 17-year-old daughter who gives her headache, but no brothers or sisters to help out. Her mother died years ago. Her father died five months before her kidney failure, and she had him cremated. Then came the kidney failure, the financial burden, and the stress. Now, she can’t bend down, she can’t get down on the ground, she can’t climb too many stairs, and because she comes to the hospital 3 days a week for dialysis, she can’t hold down a job.

3 minutes.

But I’m lucky to be alive, she says. I’ve survived and come this far. Just gotta take it one day at a time. So I can’t complain. Everybody was real nice about helping out when my dad died. And my daughter’s gonna move out soon, and so maybe I won’t have to worry so much about her.

Is she going to college? I ask this, but I already know the answer.

2 minutes.

She replies, I don’t know what she’s gonna do. Hopefully. Maybe. Probably not.

I ask if she lives nearby? Yeah…West Oakland. How bout you? Union City? Nah, I’m all the way down in Fremont. Oh it’s nice down there. Much better than here. At least it’s sunny sometimes. Warmer, too. Yeah, it gets really rainy up here. Oh yeah, it’s always so cloudy. Depressing, y’know?

1 minute.

Hey, these oranges are pretty good. Don’t taste like the ones I usually eat.

Yeah, I think I just picked them up at the supermarket.

Well….oops, here’s my train. Have a good one then.

I hope those 3 orange slices go a long way.

 

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