Patricia

Patricia and I have seen each other a number of times now on the bus and it was she she who opened the conversation one day by commenting on my nail colour. She is a nice and very talkative lady of 75 who is very open and friendly. She grew up in Pointe St Charles which used to be heavily populated by the blue-collar Irish working class and is also a neighborhood of Montreal adjacent to mine. She says that her childhood there marked her in a positive way; back in the day when people left their front doors open.

Patricia's father was an alcoholic and she lost a sister who was only 23 at the time. Her mother tolerated verbal abuse when her father descended frequently into drunken stupors. Everyone has a story.

Her left knee joint is now almost bone rubbing against bone and she tells me she is getting the run around in seeing a surgeon to see what they can do. "Life is tough" she says with dignified resignation; something I cannot entirely disagree with.

People like Patricia provide me with increased perspective and their candor adds to my realization that everyone has a load whose management hinges so much on our personal attitude. It helps me to refrain from navel gazing.