As I have to go into the office again today, I got Keely and I out the door by 6 am. It was, as I shall repeat often and with great dismay until October, oppressively hot and humid.
Nothing was out of sorts, it was all the same morning walkers, occasional rare jogger, and homeless people.
One of them whom Keely likes a lot (I trust her judgment implicitly when it comes to the nature of strangers) has not been around for a while. She’s a jolly older woman who usually has a large cart of goods to help her through her day, but it was replaced with a mostly-empty wheelchair when we saw her this morning. Keely greeted her cheerfully and I found out that the woman had been in the hospital for three weeks fighting for her life after going in for fractured ankle and developing complications. She did not, she said, have covid19 (we were keeping our distance in anycase, for mutual protection).
She told me how grateful she is to be alive, to laugh at the ducks, to pet my adorable dog. I told her to take care and stay out of the rain.
I wondered what happened to her precious cart of necessary goods, but I already know: it was tossed away, either by the cops who found her injured or the hospital staff. Everything she curated carefully for, probably, several years to help her survive, was all gone.
I am always grateful for what I, myself, have in this life now: a few heirlooms, coveted and precious; my dog; my overall health even as I age; a secure(ish) job and a roof over my head.
But I cannot be grateful to live in a society that condemns and punishes people for who they are and the circumstances they are in.
I took Keely home, fed her, and got myself ready to ride the buses with my mask on to my empty office building.