You can now search previous New York articles -

  

Index   Previous Letter    Next Letter

Lovely Rita

Sometimes I see her on Second Avenue. At other times on 59th Street. But she's always the same. She looks sixty five but could be younger and sits either directly on the sidewalk, or in a shop doorway.

Age, alcohol and cigarettes have wearied her. Her possessions don't even filll the bag with "Bellevue Hospital" written on it, which she leaves half open on the ground amongst the New York litter.

She's always cramming or pouring something into her mouth - food given to her by a local deli, alcohol, cigarettes - going from one to the other erratically, back and forth between the three, stopping only to hold out her hand or money.

No one stops. She's unappealing, filthy and obviously existing in a place none of us wants to know about.

Sometimes I hesitate. This is a human being after all. I'm tempted to ask her name, but the urge never lasts long enough.

Every time I pass her I remember Rita. Lovely Rita from Geelong in Victoria.

Rita was a big-boned striding woman in her late thirties. She exuded health and energy. Rita was one of my students in a "back to school" program I was involved with, run by the "Y" and a local Technical College. The course was for women who had been unable to finish school in their teens for whatever reason.

I've never had such enthusiastic students. They became more than students and soon we were all each others' friends. Such was their dedication to their work that they inspired me to "go back to school", in my case back to post-graduate work at a university.

Rita was vibrant and nothing was too much trouble for her. She road to class on an old bicycle, and strode in one movement from the seat to her place in the classroom.

We were studying changes in society and exploring cultures where the extended family still held strong bonds, societies where age was respected and "family" meant more than "mum, dad and kids".

Rita was a practical woman and absorbed herself in reading case studies and any literature she could find on the subject. She admired such socities. And being practical and compassionate she decided, unknown to us, to practice what she preached.

One day she was late for class. Rita who was always punctual. I asked her was all OK. "Oh yes", she said. And proceeded to tell us how the evening before she'd seen an old and dirty derro in the street. She looked at him and could see through the grime and smell of metho, a grandfather for her children. Rita's father had long since died, as had her husband's.

We stared at Rita while she explained that she'd taken the old man home, thrown him in the bath, scrubbed off years of filth, and given him some clothes of her husband.

She then sat the old bugger down in front of the fire, gave him a Golden Book, and told him that he could entertain the children while she cooked dinner.

After dinner she'd invited him to stay if he wanted. Made a room up, and there was grandpa, in residence.

We were horrified but Rita was confident. Of course it would work she said. What's the use of learning things if you don't put into practice what you've learned?

It was after that, that we called her "Lovely Rita".

Lovely Rita, but not Lovely Kate. As I walk past the old lady on Second Avenue I don't see a grandma, I can't even bring myself to ask her name.

My most compassionate thought is, "There but for the grace of god, go I".

Kate Juliff
New York
May 2005