Here is a work story. I’m blessed to be able to meet all kinds of people in my job as a traveling leasing specialist… but some of these people I take especially to heart. Here is one such woman.
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She came in out of the snow with a whirl of flakes falling to the rug around her. She was reed-thin in her long cream-colored sweater dress, suede booties, and heavy coat. Her straight black hair was braided under a white stocking cap; she wore Native American jewelry. Everything she wore looked like proudly, beautifully preserved thrift store finds. Nothing about the way she dressed or carried herself was the same as the people I’d seen through the day. Her eyes were aquamarine and penetrating. Around me, I imagined I felt something shift, felt myself tilting into some new, imaginary and magical world.
“Hello, I’m Lori,” she said, smiling sweetly and extending a thin, elegant hand. As I sat down and began talking to her about what kind of apartment she was looking for, she began unfolding her story: a series of bad decisions and worse luck culminating in a terrible living situation with no real lease agreement… But her young son was finally coming to stay with her that weekend. She needed an apartment so he could visit her safely. She was going to do whatever it took to have him with her.
It was my job to listen, I was trained to listen, but I also heard her story on a fundamentally human level because I, too, am someone who needs a roof over my head at night. We all do. Suddenly it wasn’t just another job: this was a mission to fill a basic human need for housing.
Re-telling me about her checkered past, Lori shook her head doubtfully over her application (“I just hope I can get approved,” she said) but finished it with resolve and vanished back out into the snow. The next few days she and I both, along with our office, all struggled toward the same goal: getting Lori approved.
Through all the obstacles, she persisted. Always kind, always thrift-fabulously dressed, she called worked on issues and called and visited us and called us again until she got the answers she was looking for. And then, by the most brilliant of miracles, Lori moved in Saturday.
She did it! We did it!
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone show such beautiful charm, sweet tenacity and fierce desperation all rolled into one. If I’d done nothing but help move Lori into an apartment, I would be satisfied with my tour of Indianapolis. Helping her was, well, worth having this whole job.
