Opening my eyes

Maybe it’s my faith, my belief that God has a plan for everyone that has awakened me to the harsh reality of our world. Sadly, it was never more apparent than my recent experienced forced it to be. I guess you can say I have always been blessed with a few items one could consider to be luxury in life. For me, I must admit I took these for granted. It wasn’t until yesterday… with an overwhelming 9 loads of laundry and a short time frame I opted to try my hand at a Laundromat. Not too far from our abode I visited what seemed to be a land far away. Who would have thought this world could exist only 2 miles from us. A world where English was not a language used, Spanish sit comes played in the background and the sound of clanking change happened every twenty seconds. This was my reality for one day.

The scent of heat smothered laundry detergent, sounds of spinning machines and infants crying filled the tiny room. I have never experienced what I felt or thought. My first instinct was “ thank you Lord for all the blessings in my life.” I believed until this point that I had led a very thankful life, a God driven life. Never once did I imagine I was taking things for granted, never one did I believe this could have been me. As I started the machines adding in the detergent and coins I noticed an older lady, not much older but in her mid 40’s walking around the room aimlessly asking people questions in Spanish. Being that Spanish was never my forte I assumed she needed help but couldn’t quite make out what she needed. Eventually she made her way towards my direction, with a $20.00 bill in her hand. I gathered she was asking for change. Sadly I had just used all mine. As I saw her make her way back towards her machine it caught my eye that she already had 4 machines washing and started removing items of a 5th and 6th washer. Being a bit on the nosy side I made my way towards her and noticed she had a baby in a carrier, a toddler and a young daughter around my daughter’s age. I used what small Spanish I do know to ask the daughter if she spoke English, thankfully she did. I asked the daughter in English why her mom was removing items from the washers, she turned to her mother with the widest doe eyes and repeated the words in Spanish. Her mother smiled, I was not sure if this was a smile of embarrassment, or humor and stated that the $20.00 needs to get her though next week and she only needed $1.00 more for laundry to get change at the liquor store across the street would mean she would have to buy something and this she could not afford. My heart broke. I could not imagine struggling so much that $20.00 meant the difference between food and nothing at all. I apologized if my question embarrassed her and she simply nodded…. I walked over to my purse and dug around until I found $1.00 in change hoping this would help her she was quiet but gracious. Her hands opened slowly to receive the silver coins until this moment I never felt the roughness of a woman’s hands. I was taken back, handed her the coins offered a soft smile and walked towards my machine.