Hilda

I wasn't going to write about Hilda, but there is just too much good material in this woman. People should know about our adventures together.

Let me start from the beginning.

When Isaac was only a few weeks old, Chicago had some wicked thunderstorms. Our condo is on the ground floor, providing us with a view of all that occurs on the sidewalks out front. During one of those magnificent storms, a very old and very frail woman very slowly walked by my living room window. She was using a cane, had no umbrella, and made little forward progress. I felt so bad for her! I put Isaac in his swing, donned my raincoat, and ran an umbrella out to her. This was the first conversation I ever had with Hilda:

"Ma'am, can I give you this umbrella?"
"No."
"Are you sure? It's really coming down out here."
"No."
"um...OK"

I didn't know what else to do. So I went back inside and kept my umbrella.

A few weeks later I was headed out for an evening run and saw the same woman walking down the sidewalk toward me. As I approached her I prayed, "Lord, show me a way that I can help this woman."

God has answered that prayer. In fact, He answered it a lot.

Before I even finished the thought, Hilda loudly addressed me. "Do you have a car?"
"What?" I said, stopping in my tracks.
"Do you have a car?"
"Um, yes."
"Can you give me a ride to Devon and Western?"
"Um...I don't know..."

I called Zach to ask him if it was OK to leave him with Isaac for a little while and couldn't help but feel like God was saying, "HEY YOU! This is what you asked for!" So I drove Hilda to the Currency Exchange so she could cash a check. Then she wanted to go to the dollar store so she could buy her Lucky Strike cigarettes, but it was closed. We tried two drug stores, neither of which carried her brand, before I told her I was sorry, but I had to get home to feed my baby.

A couple of weeks later, my friend Andrea was visiting and we were on our way to sit outside with Isaac. I saw Hilda making her slow way home across the street with a grocery bag, so Andrea and I offered to walk with her and carry her bag. I think it contained approximately one roll of paper towels, so it wasn't too heavy for us. My 20 pound baby, though, got to be a bit much as we walked .0000001 miles per hour down the street to Hilda's building. The whole way, Hilda couldn't get over the fact that I wasn't wearing shoes. "Does your husband know you walk around without shoes on?"

We walked up her 28 steps to her apartment and weren't the least bit surprised to find about 30 banana boxes stacked up to the ceiling, dusty little stuffed animals crammed into random places, and sweat marked furniture cluttering the room. She was very grateful, though, and wouldn't let me leave before getting "hugs and kisses" from her. I wrote down my phone number for her in the full knowledge that she would use it often.

And she does.

Since that day Hilda calls me several times per week for rides. I say no when I can't but if I really don't have a reason not to, I say yes. Usually she wants to go to The Ark, which is a social service kind of place for Jewish people. There are holiday events there, a food pantry, and her social worker. Today I took her to the Ark and then she wanted to take her two dollars (one borrowed from a social worker at the Ark) to the gas station (for a lotto ticket) and McDonalds (for a senior citizen coffee and an oatmeal raisin cookie, which totaled $0.93. She offered to give me the 7 cents in change, but I told her to keep it).

She asks me for money all the time--for rent and for cigarettes--but I always tell her I'm not going to buy her cigarettes, I can't pay her rent, and no, she cannot have my car as a gift or for one dollar.

Our conversations are pretty much always the same.

"How you feeling today, Hilda?"
"So-so. And you?"
"I'm good."
"How's the baby? Did you feed the baby?"
"Yeah, I fed him."
"Did you have breakfast? What'd you have for breakfast?" She always wants to talk about meals.
"I didn't eat yet. Did you?"
"No. I see you're drinking coffee. Where's mine? Where's my coffee?"
"I didn't know you wanted some coffee. I'll bring you some next time." I try to make a mental note to remember to bring her some coffee.
"Oh, you will, will ya? Yeah right. She's drinking coffee and doesn't bring me any....Do you have enough gas? You're not going to get lost, are you? Do you know where you are?"
"Yeah I know where I am. I have enough gas."
"What are you going to have for dinner?" Again with the meals.
"Um, I don't know yet, probably something with chicken, like a casserole or something. What are you going to have?"
"I have no idea. Can you believe that? I have no idea."

You get the idea.

For awhile she was calling and getting the answering machine but apparently didn't understand the concept. We'd get home and find 4 or 5 messages like this:

"Hello, Mr. Danielson, this is Hilda, your neighbor. Can you put Kate on the phone please? Bless your heart and thank you. This is Hilda. I live down the street. Put Kate on please. I wanna speak to Kate. It's Hilda."

I finally got her to understand that we have an answering machine and that she can leave a message and I'll call her back.

When I do answer the phone she just wants to know if I fed the baby, what I had for dinner and tells me over and over again, "Love and kisses to you and your hubby. And your baby, too. Love and kisses to all of you. You're in my prayers. And I mean that. And that's from my heart."