Rox (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
starshowers) wrote2018-08-28 03:39 pm
starshowers) wrote2018-08-28 03:39 pm
(no subject)
I met a woman at the library today.
She told me that she was 70 years ago, but didn't give me her name. Thin features, short red hair. She was in the lobby looking at graded reader books, probably for studying, and spoke with a heavy accent.
She told me that the first time anyone had ever read a book to her was when she was seven. She said that she lived in an orphanage, and did not know how to count her fingers or how to determine her age. She said that the story was in Russian, and it was about a poor man and his wife who were offered gifts by a golden fish. The woman was not satisfied and wanted more. The fish then offered them a kingdom, but she still wanted more, even though she had not earned it.
To her, the moral of the story was that you have to earn what you are asking for. I asked her where she was from - she said that she was from the former USSR, a smaller country in the Muslim Republic...I think. In her country she eventually went to school and became a licensed doctor; she said that she continued to work in a medical environment when she came here, but that she did not get re-certified to practice medicine in the US due to the large barrier to entry. I got the impression that she had other things to focus on.
She said that the reason she told me all of this was to say that if I worked hard, I could do whatever I wanted. I thanked her, and she left.
I didn't talk to her, or initiate the conversation in any way. We were looking at two different shelves. She just started talking to me. It sounds so cheesy, but I'm glad it happened. I wanted to write it before I forgot.
Thank you for seeing me.
She told me that she was 70 years ago, but didn't give me her name. Thin features, short red hair. She was in the lobby looking at graded reader books, probably for studying, and spoke with a heavy accent.
She told me that the first time anyone had ever read a book to her was when she was seven. She said that she lived in an orphanage, and did not know how to count her fingers or how to determine her age. She said that the story was in Russian, and it was about a poor man and his wife who were offered gifts by a golden fish. The woman was not satisfied and wanted more. The fish then offered them a kingdom, but she still wanted more, even though she had not earned it.
To her, the moral of the story was that you have to earn what you are asking for. I asked her where she was from - she said that she was from the former USSR, a smaller country in the Muslim Republic...I think. In her country she eventually went to school and became a licensed doctor; she said that she continued to work in a medical environment when she came here, but that she did not get re-certified to practice medicine in the US due to the large barrier to entry. I got the impression that she had other things to focus on.
She said that the reason she told me all of this was to say that if I worked hard, I could do whatever I wanted. I thanked her, and she left.
I didn't talk to her, or initiate the conversation in any way. We were looking at two different shelves. She just started talking to me. It sounds so cheesy, but I'm glad it happened. I wanted to write it before I forgot.
Thank you for seeing me.