On With Your Story

I thought about Charlotte this morning, as I passed my dining room table, picked up a book there, and carried it back to my office, where I am writing this. I was 21 when I met Charlotte, a middle-aged women with teenage children. With blond carefully set hair and a slightly plump figure in a crisply pressed white uniform, she looked more like the 1950s than the 1970s. In 1972, Charlotte and I were both training to be respiratory therapists in a program with about 15 or so other people at the UCLA Medical Center. A wife, mother, and homemaker, Charlotte was looking for her first paid work. A recent college graduate with no immediate job prospects, I was looking for a way to pay for graduate school.

Charlotte was an object of some derision to me and the half dozen other trainees my age because she undertook to mother us. She was always ready to instruct us on how to live properly. This did not go down well—we had too recently set out on our own and were proud of our independence. She struck us as smug and over-controlling — the kind of parent we would be glad to be free of. Charlotte once gave us this housekeeping solution to clutter: Whenever her kids or husband would go from one part of the house to another, they would always carry something with them that belonged there and put it away. This practical tip earned Charlotte some smirks and rolled eyes.

I don’t know if our derision was ever obvious to her, but I don’t see how she could have missed it. Nevertheless, she was unfailingly kind to everyone, especially to those of us who were almost young enough to be her children. And when I needed help, it was Charlotte who gave it. Our stipend for the full-time training program was $160 a month. My rent for a studio apartment was $103 a month. The remaining $57 didn’t cover a month’s food and other living expenses, so I applied for and received food stamps. In those days, you had to go in person to the welfare office to pick them up, between the hours of 9 AM and 5 PM–the same hours as the training program. How could I possibly get there? Charlotte. She offered to use her lunch break to drive me to the welfare office once a month.

Given our age difference, Charlotte is probably no longer living except in memories. I don’t remember Charlotte’s last name, but I remember her and what I learned, at times like today when I carried a book from one part of the house to another and put it away.