Fawlty Showers 2

 What I Don’t Know

The speaker was an attractive black woman in her early forties. Fit, well dressed, articulate, with piercing gray eyes, she seemed to have the world at her feet. Had I passed her on the street I would have guessed she was a mid-level executive on her way up.

A gas explosion had killed the rest of her family when she was thirteen.  She had gone to live with relatives, but found being indoors terrifying.

“For years I slept on a cot next to the front door,” she said. “I’ve never really gotten over the loss of my family, but I’m learning.”

She had battled her grief and fear with alcohol and Xanax until she almost died from the combination.

“I’ve gotten better, but I’m still a little anxious when I’m indoors, more than a few feet from an exit.” She smiled just a little and added, “It makes working a bit difficult.”

 “To look at her, you’d never know she struggled with anything,” Talmadge whispered to me, shaking his head. “You just never know.”

I thought about the times in my life I’d struggled and resented people I thought had life too easy.

“You don’t know,” I said, agreeing with him.  I remembered the AA slogan, ‘Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides.’

 

Today I won’t pretend to know other people's struggles.

 

Fawlty Showers 2 is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and anyone you might know is purely coincidental.

Other works by Ken Montrose are available at:

•                    www.greenbriartraining.com 

•                    https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8MG0S

 

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