An Interesting Encounter

As I was leaving my school a couple of days ago (yes, I'm still here...thank you, summer school) I was stopped on the sidewalk.

"Honey...honey...sweetie, can you help me?" a disheveled woman in her early-to-mid fifties (wearing what appeared to be her pajamas) pleaded in an out-of-breath voice.

I'm no dummy.

I live in Chicago. I work in one of it's poorest neighborhoods. I'm used to people holding up signs on expressway exits and placing old Styrofoam coffee cups on the pavement in an effort to collect money from compassionate strangers. But to be approached by an actual speaking person (with no sign or cup to be seen), was a new experience.

I resisted the urge to keep walking, and (protectively clutching my bag with both hands) I stopped.

"Oh thanks honey...thanks honey. What does it say right there?" she asked me holding up a small gas station receipt and pointing to the words CUSTOMER COPY written at the bottom.

After answering the woman's simple question, (and silently thinking an accomplice is going to jump out and attack me any second) the woman then asks, "What does that mean?"

With a death grip on my bag and my eyes scanning every perimeter, I quickly explain, "It means that it's your copy, you get to keep it."

"Oh, okay...and what are those circle things right there?" the woman says pointing to the zeros that are part of a long credit-card-type of number.

This time she must have gotten notice of the slightly irritated tone in my voice, because she apologized and completely surprised me with an admission:

"I can't read honey."

I had never heard those words from anyone that far beyond their school-aged years before.

It turned out that she didn't have any money left on her Link (Illinois' welfare system) account card. The receipt was the result of her trying to buy something at the gas station and her card getting rejected. She had no idea why she didn't have any money to buy food, and because she couldn't read, she didn't understand the proof either.

She never did ask me for money. All she wanted was my help. I felt horrible for all of those visions I had about this harmless and confused woman trying to hurt me in some way.

She was the one who was truly hurting.

How is it that this woman (who didn't appear to speak any other language than English) in her fifties did not know how to read even the simplest text? What had happened in her life that left her void of the ability to do the very thing that I advocate, promote, and teach on a daily basis?

Those of us fortunate enough to read this might want to judge her. That's why she's on welfare, wearing pajamas at 4:00 in the afternoon, and wandering around asking strangers for help.

But don't.

Just remember her and be reminded of the power that reading can provide.

And maybe pick up a book and celebrate the gift you've been given.