For those who have less than we do
I was speaking to a friend in San Francisco about her musical prodigy cousin who had been taken under Leonard Bernstein’s wing. He grew up in the projects down the street from where I lived on Mason Street. I insensitively said, how could your aunt have lived there?
The other day T said she was going to do five acts of charity a week and I thought now that is a goal to start your week with, much better than I’m going to get through this week, which seems to have been my mantra of late.
We pulled out of the driveway to go to the gym, and got to the corner of Dumaine and Moss. A car was in front stopping and starting and just generally making me want to pull my hair out. But as I pulled along the side of it trying to get passed, we saw it was an elderly woman, around my mother’s age and we rolled down the window and asked if we could help her.
Turned out she was confused and lost and looking for the brake tag station – and Moss Street is very confusing because it is Moss on both sides of the bayou and ends on Esplanade and becomes Jeff Davis on the other side of Orleans. Last year, my mother missed a party I was having because she got to the corner of Orleans and saw a sign that said Jeff Davis and she ended up getting so confused she went home and cried.
My mom has always had a heart that leaned towards the helpless. It has taken me years and experience to be like her.