Quietly, and Then Boldly

Six months ago, Odilia received her first eviction notice.

Three months ago, Odilia pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head and hunched her shoulders as she walked into a soup kitchen for the first time

Three weeks ago, Odilia pawned her mother’s wedding ring to pay her car payment- she couldn’t lose the one thing that kept her protected from the winter and that could get her to job interviews, even if it meant losing the only tangible thing she had left of her mom. Her SUV was a roof over her head, and somehow, a sacred space to collect her thoughts and find hope even on the coldest of nights.

Yesterday, Odilia received a check for $20,000.

And today, Odilia sits on the curb of her favorite restaurant, turning this piece of paper over and over, front to back. “Pay to the order of.” Her name. It was all too surreal, that her life could change so drastically in one day, in one single 24-hour period. The wind was biting her bare fingers, and even though she had gloves in her pocket, she couldn’t put them on yet- she had to feel the check with her own flesh, not through cloth, her fingertips feeling electric as she grazed her index finger along the line where her name was written in crisp, black ink. Twenty. Thousand. Dollars.

***

Losing everything happens a lot faster than you think it does.

Odilia was a recent college graduate, fresh-faced and tenacious, climbing the ranks at her marketing firm and doing so with acclaim. She had always imagined herself as a creator of sorts and found marketing to be the perfect fit, especially branding. It allowed her to build something from nothing, blending a company’s vision, ethos and dreams into something recognizable and relatable, and it came wildly natural to her. She could meet with a CEO or entrepreneur that had all the right ideas but didn’t know how to share them with the world, and after twenty or thirty minutes, Odilia could close her eyes and just see what needed to be done. The colors, fonts, logos, catch phrases, slogans would float around behind her eyes, doing an intricate dance until they landed in the exact place they belonged. It was magical. And that is why she was nothing short of shocked when she was laid off.

They had seen the recession coming and did their best to stay on the crest of a wave that was destined to crash. They weren’t alone; many of their competitors were already down to bones if they were able to keep the lights on at all. “It’s a tough economy,” they had told her, “and as much as we value you, your talent, you don’t have the seniority. We kept you as long as we possibly could.” It was heartbreaking- losing her job was heartbreaking, knowing that it wasn’t her fault was somehow more heartbreaking, watching her coworkers leave as well was the worst. They were a family, and this, well, this felt like a tiny little death inside.

The day she left the firm, she sat in a coffee shop, tearful. As she sat sipping on her not-too-hot latte, likely the last one she would have for a while now, she managed to find a well of hope in her heart. Maybe she didn’t have a job, but she had some savings that should last her a few months. She would certainly have a job by then, wouldn’t she? Odilia decided to write out a budget, something to make her feel a little more in control. She dug her well-worn, little black notebook out of her tote bag along with a pen and opened the banking app on her phone. But before she could start looking at the numbers, a memory crept in, quietly, then boldly, putting a smile on her face.

When Odilia was seventeen, she worked at a bookstore. Near the registers stood a display of Moleskin notebooks and every shift, she’d pick one up, feel the smoothness of the cover, say to herself, “one day,” before putting it back on the shelf. To her, there was nothing that said I’ve made it more than these little notebooks- they were beautiful, a luxury item- and she promised herself that the day she graduated college, she would buy herself one as a gift. Now, holding this notebook she had promised to herself years ago, she decided to make another promise to herself. She wrote it in big block letters instead of her budget: I WILL NOT LOSE HOPE. She wrote it again and again until she felt it take place in her heart.

When her savings started getting low, she would open her Moleskin and read the promise she made to herself: “I will not lose hope.”

When job applications turned into rejections, she would open her little black notebook, with its tattered corners, and read the promise she made to herself again. “I will not lose hope.”

When the eviction notices came and the insurance companies cancelled her for non-payment, she would read it again. “I will not lose hope.”

On the days that were especially hard, she would write lists. These were her gratitude lists- she knew that if she could keep her heart grateful that it would be harder to give in to the despair that threatened her every day. So, she wrote her lists on the worst days. The day she pawned her mom’s wedding ring, her list was exceptionally long. Better days, she would write about her future: she’d write about the people she would help, the trips she would take, the food she would enjoy, and she would write it with such conviction you would think it was real. She worked on creating her future much like she created the branding for those companies- closing her eyes and letting the ideas dance, some to a waltz, some to a tango, until a melody played that would have them all swaying in a perfect rhythm. Those were the ideas she would put on paper and were the daydreams she wanted to manifest, even the seemingly impossible ones. One cold night, as she was falling asleep, she remembered a story she had heard about a man that bought a painting at a garage sale that ended up being worth millions. Her last thought before drifting to sleep was, “that could be me.”

Odilia woke up the next morning to the sounds of the rain. It was her favorite sound, and something that often found a spot on her gratitude lists. Rain made it easier to sleep in her car- it drowned out the “people noises” as she called them, but more important, the rain made it almost certain that no one would come knock on her window and tell her to move. She laid in the back of her car watching the rivulets of rain flow down the window glass and listened to the steady pulse of the drops on the roof. She prayed that it would continue until tomorrow, knowing that a rainy night is a peaceful night, then decided to treat herself to a cup of store-bought coffee for the first time in weeks. She sat up, pulled on her shoes, crawled over the center console into the front seat and started the car.

Odilia pulled into the convenient store that served her favorite brewed coffee and went inside. She remembered the days of not-too-hot lattes and the aroma of fresh roasted beans, the froth of the milk lingering on the bottom side of the lid she always removed, but was glad for this fresh cup of coffee even if it didn’t have the frills. It didn’t come in powder form, she didn’t have to heat water with an immersion heater powered from her car lighter, and it really was tasty. As she poured the coffee from the carafe and it started to warm her hands through the walls of the paper cup, she felt truly grateful as the rising steam filled the air with the scent of the vanilla beans. She added one and a half creamers, caramel, and headed to the register to pay. As she was waiting for her change, she thought, “I will not lose hope,” but today, it sounded different to her. Today, it felt like everything was different. Like everything was about to change.

As she walked out to her car, cup in hand, she noticed a small piece of paper on the ground and bent down to pick it up to throw away. “My little contribution to the world these days,” she mumbled. As she walked towards the garbage can, she noticed it was a lottery ticket that had been folded in half. She looked around to see if she could find whoever dropped it, but there was no one around. It was a quiet, rainy morning and she was the only one there. She tucked it in her back pocket and got in her car. Odilia was listening to the radio, watching the heat from the coffee fog the windshield, when she noticed an older pickup truck pull in next to her. On the special days she bought coffee, she preferred to just sit in the parking lot enjoying it, sipping slowly, people watching. Today was no different, so when the driver of the truck got out, she watched him. He was the only one there to watch.

There was an energy about him she couldn’t identify. Frantic? Panic? She watched him walk into the store and could see him through the glass; watched as he walked from one side of the store to the other, head down, sweeping side to side. She took another sip, watched as he talked to the woman at the register, watched as she shook her head no. She watched him do another lap, like he was retracing his steps. When he walked outside, he started doing the same thing, head down, eyes searching in corners and shadows. “He’s lost something,” she whispered to herself, then because she had nothing else to do and always tried to be a good person, she got out of her car and asked, “Sir, did you lose something? Can I help you look?” He looked up, startled at first, but now the look on his face was more sadness and desperation than whatever it had been when he arrived.

He met her eyes, chuckled a sad, hopeless little chuckle, and said “Yeah, I did. I lost a winning lottery ticket.” She smiled, surely it was a joke, then stopped. There was nothing about his posture, expression or eyes that said “joking.” A second later, she realized that the folded paper in her back pocket, the one that was almost thrown away, was the one he was looking for. One more second, she realized that she had an unknown amount of money tucked securely away, currently in the form of someone’s lucky numbers. And then one more second, knew it wasn’t hers to keep. She pulled it out of her pocket, asked “is this it?” and watched the man start to weep as he said yes.

***

And that is how Odilia, now sitting on the curb of her favorite restaurant, came to hold a check for $20,000 in her hands. The man’s ticket wasn’t worth millions, but it was worth enough that he had extra to share with the girl that picked it up, almost threw away, and returned it to him because that morning, she decided to treat herself to a cup of coffee. She put the check in her pocket, stood up, and went inside to enjoy a hot lunch before going to pick up her mom’s ring from the pawn shop. “I will not lose hope,” she said out loud to no one in particular, as she pulled the door closed behind her.