Alma Matters

I called her the "Bosnian Bitch". We didn't officially meet until we were sitting by one another. Oh how seating arrangements hold as much importance as they do in grade school. But we weren't children. We were twenty-somethings. And yet I still wanted to pass notes about how mean this girl was and how I didn't know why she wanted to be my friend.

What I didn't know was, while I was passing notes and jumping rope in third grade, she was hiding. Hiding from the bad people that were out to get her family. She had already been separated from her father; Alma, her mother, and older brother would find shelter wherever they could. They had been basically starving, living off of what little food they could find. And for the first time, at least they were free from the internment camp they had been forced to stay at for the past few years.

While she watched people get beaten and raped from inside those walls, I made friendship bracelets and rode my bike with my friends. While she was crying and searching to be reunited with her father, I was complaining about how strict my parents were.

But as twenty somethings, we knew nothing about the other. All I knew about her was that she looked rich, like she didn't need this job. She wore a different outfit to work each day for almost a year, exaggerating the high-fashion label present on all her tags. Bragging about how her mother would buy her all of these expensive clothes, and her husband of only a year wanted her to look her best all the time, and would spoil her in this regard.

She wasn't a nice person, this Alma. She would pick on people, asking them questions one doesn't ask when you don't know someone very well. Questions that would make people uncomfortable and walk away. She asked me a lot of these questions. One time I put her in her place, telling her, "that's none of your business!" And then she was quiet... for about an hour.

Almost nothing made her shy or act modestly. She wasn't afraid of anyone. She walked in the front door every day, head held high, dressy clothes ironed neatly when the rest of us were in jeans.

She started begging me to go to lunch with her one day. I don't know why, but after a few days of this, I did. I realized what a mistake I had made after we were alone together for 15 minutes and therefore asked if we could "get it to go" and bring the food back to work. We did. And as we ate near each other she started telling me, telling everyone in her row about her stories. I don't remember who asked, but someone did. And she told us. Told us about her childhood struggle, her (eventual) joyful reunion with her father. Told us about spending her teenage years in Chicago, both parents working two jobs to support their children.

And as I listened, my eyes watered; mouth agape. I felt so stupid, so ignorant. But how was I to have known? How was I to assume this stuck-up, resilient, sarcastically blunt woman, this "Bosnian Bitch", was that way for a reason?

We ate lunch together every week after that. Alma loved food, though no one would guess by her nearly 6 foot, size 4, slender model's frame. She would bring in Bosnian treats to work, and homebaked dishes she would share....usually just with me. My favorite was this bread thing she made; not a roll, not a crossaint, but something delicious and buttery in between the two concepts. She would spread "laughing cow" cheese on top and it became something I craved in my sleep. She also taught me how to make spinach artichoke dip, something that was gone before any other dish when our department had a potluck day.

We eventually became the best of friends- almost inseperable at work. Kind of like those girls in elementary school that hate each other, but then one day realize they idolize the same teenage heartthrob, and then declare they're "best friends forever". That's how we were, Alma and I.

Then one day, we both transferred to different departments. Didn't see each other anymore. I started a new job somewhere else. A few months into that job, they switched our seating arrangement. Unbelievably, I had to sit by a new Alma. An Alma that looked to be almost 80 years old. She was also tall and thin; could easily be that woman who plays an evil witch in a movie with her scowly aged face. And her voice. Oh how loud it was! Probably from partial deafness, but no matter the reason, I couldn't even hear myself think whenever old Alma was talking on the phone. And she was apparently hard to understand too because she was constantly repeating herself to customers. "I was just calling to..." "I Was Just Calling to..." "I WaS JusT CallinG TO..." "I WAS JUST CALLING TO...!!!". Luckily her shift ended a few hours before mine and I was given some relief at the end of each day.

One morning I came into work and noticed a few people crowding around her desk. She had been gone the day before, so I expected the nosy on-lookers were wondering as to why this was. Apparently she had an art show. I joined the circle, and found out old Alma was a lifelong artist, and even had a website to display her paintings.

I thought to myself, "So that's why she has to work a part time job at her age," and immediately felt sad for her.

But sad old Alma was not. She was cutthroat, unapologetic and gleamed with the sparkle of someone important. Like Bosnian Alma, she was always dressed well. She had the sophistication of someone who was alive in 50 years ago, when it was important to look like a lady. Probably because, she was alive 50 years ago.

A few days later, a young woman came around the corner and asked old Alma for change for a dollar. Afterwards, she told me it was her daughter. And she told me stories of her family, how her husband recently died, and her only daughter (who was also a single mother of 1) came to stay with her for awhile.

From that day onward, her voice didn't bother me as much. It was a voice of wisdom and heritage, a voice, though breaking in it's old age, had much more to say about life than I could in my youth.

Alma was gone from work more often after that. She told me it was for doctor's appointments, but never explained why. I never asked. It didn't need to be explained for a woman of her years. And eventually, we parted ways as well. Again, not by choice, but by circumstance.

It's still makes me smile how- in a time where the name Alma isn't a popular one - I've met two of them. And these women, though unsuspecting, both taught me something. They showed me what it means to exist in a world full of so much struggle. And how existing is different from living.