(no subject)

there was this woman who used to teach sunday school at my church. i met her one summer at camp gitchigomee, i was 10 or 11 and she was a volunteer staff. she was a recent recovering alcoholic, just out of an abusive marriage with two daughters older than me and we used to go for walks and talk. well, we'd go for walks and she would ask me questions and eventually i would talk - about my grandad and uncle brian who were both in hospital, about the recent dissolution of my parents' marriage and my disclosure of abuse. i loved spending time with her and i loved that she was interested in me. (looking back now, she was the only outside support i had; my mum was in therapy after learning about the abuse but somehow it wasn't necessary for me until a few years later when i became "difficult." i had also been told not to talk about it as it would upset my grandad should it get back to him - he never did find out.)

she walked everywhere, even to come and meet me halfway across town so we could walk together back to her house for the afternoon. she had me over for dinner once and made blueberry pie. she liked my poems and my drawings, often asking me about them and pointing out my talents. she never tried to get me to hang out with her daughters and understood my mother's reticence about our friendship; was extremely effective at circumventing her behaviour.

i was sitting at her kitchen table drawing, listening to her tell me how her daughters had named their recent kitten addition by randomly opening the bible (Jehosaphat), when my mum called and asked to speak with me. i was told i had to come home right away - i was pissed b/c my mum constantly did this to me, cutting my visits short or putting restrictions on them - but when i asked why, she wouldn't tell me. she kept saying, just come home. now. even when i said, grandad's dead isn't he? - she wouldn't answer. deirdre took me home. and yes, he had died.

i don't recall seeing much of deirdre after that, except at the funeral. i remember walking down the centre aisle and seeing her face; she was sitting alone and her compassion is the only thing i remember crying about. when i moved a few months later we exchanged letters but then i got old and lost touch.

i had forgotten about her until the past week - for some reason she's been popping up, along with the memories. i googled her and it seems she went on to get her phd in sociology, spent time in china and now teaches university on the east coast.

this is what some of her students had to say about her:
( apparently she's turned into a crazy lesbian cat lady )