A conversation that changed my life

A few years ago I was working from home and heard a knock on the door. I don’t typically answer the door during the business day but for some reason, that day I did.

Standing on my porch in the hot sun of the Seattle mid-day was a beautiful woman. A vibrant woman. An intelligent woman. As she launched into a sales pitch for magazine subscriptions I was blown away at how articulate and professional she was, and yet… she was selling magazines door to door.

I interrupted her to quickly say that I didn’t really need any magazines and she asked me to reconsider because she was selling magazines to earn her way out of a local women’s shelter. And in that moment my heart shattered a bit at the unfairness of life.

This woman was not so very different from me, yet we were on different sides of the doorway.

I don’t know what compelled me but I asked her… why was someone clearly so very capable and yes, beautiful, selling magazines door to door? I mean… by all means be a salesperson but why not in some other capacity because it can’t be fun walking from no to likely no.

Jaqueline told me her story. Like me, she grew up in an inner-city neighborhood, from a broken home. Mostly poor, but with access to good enough public school and a single mom who taught her good manners.

Something must have moved in both of us that day because after talking for quite some time, I said I just couldn’t support the company who was taking advantage of her but would she please let me help her get a different job. She said thank you but I probably couldn’t help because she was a convict. At the time I was working with a company that had a work program for parolees and so surprisingly, I actually could!

This woman was not so very different from me, yet we were on different sides of the doorway.

I expected a lot of responses, but I didn’t expect her eyes to well up with tears. I felt awful … I wanted to help, not make her cry! What came next changed me forever.

She said she was crying because noone had ever believed in her like that. Here I was a stranger seeing all this potential in her when so many others in her life hadn’t. We both had a good cry that day and before she left she asked me what I thought the reason was that our lives turned out so different.

I said hope and a vision for what COULD be. I grew up seeing all kinds of paths that could be open to me if I worked hard enough. I had adults who invested in me and reassured me it was possible. Jaqueline did not.

I helped her in the way that I could but she gave me so much more than I gave her. She gave me the inspiration for Foster Courage.

We lost touch shortly after that, but one day I hope she realizes this podcast is dedicated to her.