Weary

I meet even before I moved to the building.  In fact Awesome (Her Uyghur name is a type of flower, but it is prounced like out word awesome, and since I think she is a pretty cool lady that is what we are going to call her), was the one who introduced me to my land lord and even helped negotiate a good price.  She is a single mom of two girls living in the apartment above me.  Her parents divorced before she was even born, her mother raised her until her untimely death, the rest of Awesome’s formative years were spent in her grandparent’s home, but they both died when she way in her late teens.  In a culture that is all about family and connectedness she is alone.   Her younger daughter has sever handicaps and even at the age of 5 can only say two words “mom” and “sister”.  In the evening I can often hear here through the floor throwing a fit , grunting, squealing and trying to communicate her needs.  Awesome herself, while rather well educated has taken a job cleaning our stairs and removing the trash.  She works long hours at the rather menial job that is looked down on by others, but she does it because she can easily pop home and check on her younger daughter who, even though she is so young, is left at home alone during the day.   Everyone is always telling her to get remarried, but no one wants to take responsibility for a handicapped child, and after how abusive her first husband was she is really leery of men in general.  Awesome and I will often spend time visiting each other’s homes in the evening, out of all my neighbours she seems the most eager to hear the stories I share about the life of J. To Awesome , J says “Come”