and there she would be, leaning out that window with no coat, no gloves, making change, handing out coffee, always with a smile on her face. I would marvel at her contentedness, even envy it at times. Once I asked her why she always seemed so happy, and she launched into a life story too horrendous to be believed. It was the story of a husband who beat her and a daughter who died in a car crash and a month of sleeping in the mudroom of her church, and she concluded by saying: “This is the happiest time of my day, being around all these nice people.” I looked around and saw the typical groups of folks you’d expect in a Dunkin’ Donuts; they didn’t all seem so nice to me. But this was the best part of her day, serving inexpensive snacks to ungrateful masses of people. This was her life. And then one day she was gone. I don’t know what happened, she just disappeared. I tried asking everyone I could in the store, but no one knew what happened to her. She just stopped showing up. The manager told me: “Often our people find better jobs and they don’t bother coming back to quit.” But I knew that wasn’t the case; she would never have left that job unless something awful happened to her. And I’ll never know what it was. When I went home that night I realized I didn’t even know her name. And that made me so sad I cried myself to sleep.
I also often feel sorry for people I’ve never met.
For instance, just the other day there was this woman who wept uncontrollably when she was called to “Come on down!” on The Price Is Right. It was clearly the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her, and it was completely ruined by some jerk who bid one dollar more than she did on the cost of a lawn mower, and he wound up on stage playing a game with dice while she stood there hoping for another chance. But I could see on my watch it was going to be time for the showcase showdown next, so there would be no more chances for her. And that hopeful look on her face made me cry. That poor woman had waited her whole life to come on down, and that was all she got.
There was another woman on that same episode I also felt sorry for. She did make it up on stage and played a game where she would win a car if she could guess how much it cost. The car was a little Mazda. I don’t know that you could have fit two people and two bags of groceries in it, but this woman guessed the price was $78,000. Drew Carey was so taken aback by her guess I thought he was going to have to be carried away. But, bless her heart, this woman felt really good about her answer, and for that one minute she was just as sure as she could be that she was going to win a brand-new car. Of course, everyone in the studio and everyone watching on television knew before she did that she had absolutely no chance, and for those few seconds when she was the only one in the world who still believed, my heart ached for her.
So, there are those moments in my life practically every day. And when you combine them with all the regular ones that get to you as well, like the starving children with distended stomachs, it is basically a full-time job. I think the only person I’ve never felt sorry for in my whole life is me.
Why would I? I was born with every advantage imaginable. My family is wealthy, I am healthy, I’ve always been able to choose whatever path I like. Yes, my father can be petulant and insensitive, and yes, he is now dating a woman only four years older than I am, but that isn’t really my issue. I feel sorry for my mother, who died so young, and my younger brother, who always idolized our father and has felt personally betrayed and disillusioned by Dad’s failings, but none of that has kept me from pursuing my interests or living my life. I have never imagined anyone would feel sorry for me, much less me feel it myself, until I typed “FuckLarryBird” into my husband’s laptop on the