Citizens Smiling

The one thing I will miss about working late at my current job is the talks I get to have with the wonderful woman who cleans our office. She's from El Salvador and speaks with wide eyes and a brilliant smile and when she talks about her sons and about how she picked up more hours at work, her face lights up like an El Salvadorian menorah. Tonight she told me she passed her immigration test. It was so moving to hear her talk about it because I knew how hard she had studied. 100 questions, and they only ask 16. Every day she'd listen to one question in her car and repeat the answer over and over and over again. Every day she'd add a question. She told me she didn't even know what some of the questions meant because all of the questions are in English and she said she doesn't speak English, which really made me feel stupid because here I am understanding almost everything she's saying and I sure as hell don't speak Spanish...

Part of me was exhausted so maybe that's why I got teary eyed, and then the other part of me was just in such awe of this person. To give you a sense of what her day is like,...she gets to her first job at 4 in the morning. Her last job ends at 1 in the morning, and when I asked her if she was tired, she said, "Sometimes, but I love it." And that's a beautiful thing. To really love your job, even after a 16 hour day, and still be smiling... well it makes my quitting smoking sound like pretty small potatoes... and it also makes me feel bad for complaining so damn much...

Her two boys are her pride and joy and she said to me with her hand on her chest, "My boys are citizens now! I don't have to worry about that anymore." And I thought about how sweet that must be for her... and I thought about how proud her boys must be and I thought about how special that is... I can remember the day I got naturalized and how big of a deal I remember I was supposed to feel like it was...but you know what I was really excited about? Getting to skip school, getting a free American Flag, and watching my dad curse like a drunken sailor when we came out and he had realized his car had been towed. Hear him tell it now and you can still get a sense of just how pissed he was...

Anyway, you're probably wondering what is the point of this story?  And the point is...if someone can be that resilient and that strong, and that remarkable... then at the end of the day, I can sure as hell quit smoking and live to smile about it.