Living Proof

For the life of me I cannot remember the title of the movie I was watching last night, but it was about this young girl who was an aspiring writer during the great depression. She lived with her family in an urban part of Canada, until she started coming down with a terrible cough, which led the family to believe it was tuberculosis. They sent her off to live with her aunt up in a rural part of the area to get some fresh air. Her aunt lived alone, lived off the land and relied on nobody. She was strong, strict, hardworking and brave. The girl eventually got better due to her aunt’s care, but while she was there, she revealed that she has always wanted to be a writer. The aunt encouraged her and said, “Tell your story. Every story has a beginning, a middle and an ending.” So when the girl got better, she wrote a story about “The bravest man I’ve ever known was a woman” (her aunt) and wrote about how fearless her aunt was to live alone, get her own food and to live out her dream. She won...

While grabbing a coffee at a local cafe nearby, I overheard a woman say something I knew that she would soon regret. She had reconnected with an old female coworker while waiting for her latte. By the conversation, you could tell that they’ve worked together for a long time, but when the job ended, so did their friendship. They never kept in touch after the company went out of business. It seemed like a friendly little chatter, until the woman asked her old friend, “So, when are you expecting?” You could tell the woman was shocked by this question, leaving me to believe that she wasn’t pregnant at all. Her response was, “The day you get a face lift.” She then dropped a wrapper in the garbage and quickly shuffled out of the cafe obviously insulted. The woman still left in the cafe looked over at anyone who may have overheard this appalling exchange, shot a glance at me and then slightly lifted her arms as to say, “Did I say something wrong?” Whether it was a matter of being ri...