The Gambler

I’ve mentioned this woman briefly in past posts.  I’m going to refer to her as “the gambler” because in this neighborhood, that's what she’s been labeled (as well as a little crazy).  Well, let me say as far as I can deduce from my grandmother and her neighbors accounts, she has a severe gambling problem.  She spends the majority of her money in the local casino and when she’s not in the casino she’s running here and there doing odd jobs to get more money so that she can return to the casino.  When she’s not running around grabbing odd jobs in the neighborhood, she’s in neighbor’s homes asking to borrow food for herself and/or her pets.  My grandma says she’ll come to her house and ask for a glass of milk, then walk to the next person’s house and ask for some bread, then walk to the next persons house to see if they have deli meat and cheese.  And that is how she eats some days.  So, “the gambler” will be her name until further notice.

She <3's the slot machines!

I must say initially “the gambler” was just white noise.  She would walk into my grandmother’s home like a tornado, talking a million miles a minute and so she was easy to ignore.  I could hardly understand what she was saying mostly due to the speed of her delivery but also because she has a few teeth missing…wow it smells like rain…like the rain is definitely coming.  Ok, back to the story.  So, most of the time she’d whisk in jabbering away while my grandmother (who seemed to always be ignoring her jabbering as well) filled a Styrofoam cup with cat food or handed her the newspaper and sent her on her way.  The rain is here…I’m sitting in our second living room (we recently created a sitting room in the old garage attached to the house) this is gorgeous!  Ok focus! 

Then, one day, I started listening to her.  I concentrated and I would get bits and pieces of her story.  She admits to being depressed.  She thinks my grandmother is very lucky to have the family she has and whenever she sees me do the slightest thing for my grandmother, she praises it to no end.  She’s a hard worker and at the end of the day, has a good heart.  Before I came, she was one of the many neighbors who watched out for Mama and helped her with anything she needed.  She reminds her regularly that she is still is available should she need her for anything. 

Then yesterday, Mama and I were enjoying a quiet evening out here in our new second living room.  I was fighting frustration while trying to make sense of my Spanish homework and Mama was just chilling.  Sitting in our matching recliners, we chatted about this and that and at times she even served as a Spanish tutor.  Max was chilling out too sniffing around, trying to make sense of this new hangout spot.  In comes “the gambler”, “Ohhh, look at these two lovely ladies hanging out.  How beautiful.”  “The gambler” had come to serve as a messenger from another neighbor to me.  A few days before, my grandmother had set me up with yet another neighbor to aid me in my quest to find a church.  So the church neighbor sent “the gambler” to tell me that she had to go to church earlier than she originally planned because they were serving communion the next day and she had volunteered to help.  So, “the gambler” was there to give me my options: either I go with the church lady at 9:30am or I ride with “the gambler” at 10am.  I opted for the 9:30am trip.   Why?  Well, I’ll admit it.  I was scared.  I was scared of the unknown with “the gambler”.  As I previously mentioned she talks a mile a minute.  I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep up with her stories and both of us would end up frustrated (remember also that folks say she’s a lil loco in the coco).  She’s also a huge pet person.  She feeds and welcomes the random dogs that walk the neighborhood, she stays with various things like lawn mowers and weed wackers hanging out her car and I just didn’t know what I was going to encounter when agreeing to roll with her to church especially since I naturally assumed we’d take her car.  In retrospect, my reasons were silly and a bit shameful, but whether right or wrong, those were the reasons I opted out.  While she waited for the church lady to get home (so she could relay my message), she decided to sit and chat it up with us while she played with Max.  That chat forever changed how I see this woman.  God never stops teaching you lessons, if you bother to stop and really listen...

“The gambler” comes from a heavily Catholic family.  In fact, according to her, her parents were the only ones in the family to have ever divorced.  Her father comes from money, and according to my grandmother, she has cousins and uncles who are millionaires.  Her mother did not come from money and was a schoolteacher.  From what I understood her saying, when “the gambler” was about 7 years old, her mother couldn’t afford to care for her anymore and she was placed in an orphanage.  Apparently she was picked on a lot there and you can see, to this day, when she tells the stories she almost transforms back to that scared 7 year old.   I told Mama what I thought I heard.  When she replied, “Yes, you understood.”  I just looked at Mama and said, "Can you imagine not having parents to protect you at 7?  Could you imagine being shipped to an orphanage where you were bullied not only because you’re little and an easy target, but also because of your heritage?”  Mama just stared at me and nodded her head…then she fell silent in thought.  I too fell silent as the dots began to connect.  That woman is hurt, she’s alone and like many others, she’s had a tough life.   About an hour later “the gambler” returned to relay the same message…church lady had to leave early but she would leave later.  I understood this to be a hint that church lady didn’t want me to go early with her.  So this time, I didn’t hesitate in my response.  “I’ll go with you, no problem.”  She said “ok” and hurried back home.

This morning “the gambler” was dressed very nicely for church.  She had an air of excitement about her and came over to use some of Mama’s hairspray. Over breakfast my grandmother looked at me and said, “It’s good that you’re going with her, she needs to go and if you weren’t going she’d find a reason not to go.”   As for my trepidation regarding her car, well she opted to go in mine…and that was that.

Church was awesome.  The feeling I had been looking for during my mini church tour, I found today.  So, for now, I have a church in Puerto Rico!  Things are getting settled poco a poco (little by little).  As for “the gambler”, well the Lord seemed to speak to her today as well.  During the service, she turned to me and confessed, “I need to leave the casino alone.”  At the end of the service she walked to the front and asked for prayer with one of the ministers.  Now, this is not to say tomorrow she will be a forever-changed woman, but she is aware of the problem and that is a first step.  She has found compassion in me, and if she doesn’t know it yet, she will in time.  Poco a poco she can find her way out of her depression…she just has to invest in herself.  After all, poco a poco is all any of us can do right?