Familiar Strangers

Yesterday, I don't know, for some reason I started to think back to one particular sweet old lady who didn't know how to speak English all that well but still managed to make the best Asian Stir Fry I have had to date.

Everyday, I would walk into Washburn's crappy cafeteria, and everyday there was never anything good to eat. And believe me, I'm not a picky eater.

So, I ate her stir fry each time. At the beginning she was really bad in her pronunciation of certain things like "water chestnuts" which was completely unintelligible. So for the longest time, I never had certain items in my stir fry. Slowly I would ask her to add in more and more vegetables.

Baby corn, mushrooms, onions, bell pepper....yes, eventually the water chestnuts (I had no idea what they were until later).

I didn't realize that she would repeat each of these things after me, and later through the semester her English improved dramatically. At least her English of Stir fry. She would recognize me as I would step into line. Each time she saw it was me (whether I was next or at the end of the line) she would give me this big smile.

What is bugging me though is that I don't know her name, nor could I figure out where she is from. Eastern Europe? Italy?

I guess I'm sad that I may never know. It's awful how you can go through life and not really sit down and talk to the people you nod hello to everyday. Then again, it may be a character flaw on my part because I know it had passed through my mind at least once to ask her a question beyond, "How are you?"

But with anything in life, I have to use it as a lesson to learn. Next time, ask for their time. I know she would not have refused.