The Lady No One Could Stand

She wasn’t pretty. In fact, she had a somewhat disheveled look to her.  Who knows what her job was at this prison I worked at, but she came around to transact some sort of business in my department now and then. Everyone avoided her as much as possible. 

“She’s mean and hateful,” they would say.  “She’ll bite your head off. Better to leave her alone.”

Indeed, she looked the part. Her furrowed brow, her prominent eyebrows, the narrow hollow eyes, the set jaw all gave her the look of someone you better leave alone.  She never had much to say and what she did say was short and curt, in a “better leave me alone” tone.  No one could stand her, but I  couldn’t understand why someone would want to be such a mean and disagreeable person.  

Every time she would come around, she would pique my curiosity, but I also felt a pity that someone could choose to live a life so full of bitterness.  Being a little off-center myself, I naturally distrust majority opinion and what this mysterious “everyone”  says.   I just had to experience this one for myself.

One day, as she came down the hall to our office to make her delivery, I  got in the corridor ahead of her,  smiled, and told her good morning.   She was taken aback and glared at me like I had offended her in some way.   I kept the smile and let silence take its course.  After a few moments, I asked her how does she feel today.  It wasn’t the customary “how are you,” but a little more personal to suggest I really did want to know how she felt.  Her face took on a startled look.

“Who told you,” she snapped.

“Told me what?” A  long pause and her face seemed to be losing its rigidity.  The eyes widened, showing a fear and pain I had not seen before in her face.  Then there were tears, sobbing tears of despair.  I held her hand as she explained her terrible diagnosis:  she was dying of cancer. 

“I will pray for you.”

She nodded, wiped away her tear, patted me on the arm, and moved past me. 

Her face never had the meanness on it again that I could see.  Maybe it was my vision of her now, and maybe it was her vision that someone cared; that someone was praying for her.  Of course, the office consensus concerning this poor woman never changed until I told them the story one day.  It was then their faces seemed to soften.   Now, they seemed to have compassion instead of condemnation.  Over the next few weeks, several more people talked to her and became involved with this poor soul.   There were hugs, more tears, and the Love of God got real for this “lady no one could stand.”