The Woman Everyone Ignored Just Changed My Life Forever

On my block, there was an elderly woman who had nowhere to go and nothing to eat. Nobody came to her aid.

I brought her food every day for four years. I was the target of my neighbors’ stares. She passed away yesterday.

I froze when I received a call from an unidentified number. This elderly woman proved to be someone I never would have thought of.

She caught my attention for the first time in the winter of 2021. The neighborhood, a quiet cul-de-sac in a little town outside of Portland, was where I had recently moved.

After my divorce, I was attempting to start over by renting a small one-bedroom apartment. Around here, most people stayed to themselves. They nodded when you waved, and that was that.

But I would always see her when I went past this one dilapidated little cottage. Even in the midst of summer, they were small, stooped, and covered by a flimsy shawl. On sometimes, she would sit on the porch and gaze into space. At times, she was completely absent.

No one seems to notice her. As if she were nonexistent.

I brought her a bag of groceries one afternoon. Eggs, bananas, and some leftover roasted chicken were among my extras. She blinked at me as if I had given her a bar of gold when I offered it to her.

Mrs. Genara, she explained, was her name. That’s all. No first name. If she needed anything else, I inquired. Despite shaking her head, she held the bag close to her chest as though it were holy.

That became into our thing.

I would bring her something every day after work. leftovers occasionally. I occasionally get soup from the Filipino deli close to my workplace. She never made any explicit requests. I was never allowed inside by her. On the porch, we would always converse.

She would tell me trivial things like how rain made her knees hurt more, how she used to enjoy music, and how she had been to Spain once but couldn’t recall the exact date. Like she was wandering through a fog she had grown accustomed to, her recollection was hazy.

I was considered strange by the neighbors.

As I made my way back to my car, I would hear whispering. “Is she his relative?” “How does he benefit from it?” “That house poses a risk to public safety.”

Nobody else was in the vicinity of her home. I once watched the HOA guy drive off without saying anything after taking pictures of her yard.

Nobody really knew who she was, so I asked around. Just that she “wasn’t all there anymore,” that her husband passed away “ages ago,” and that she had lived there “forever.” She was dismissed as a hopeless case.

But for four years, I was there every day.

even when I had no money. even with COVID-19. even when I had to carry soup containers wrapped in towels to keep them warm while I walked the three blocks when my car broke down. I have no idea why. It was absolutely natural.

When I arrived at her porch yesterday morning, I noticed an ambulance parked outside.

A youthful paramedic descended the stairs. I went cold. He looked at me and simply shook his head.

In her sleep, she had passed away.

I stood there, utterly useless, soup still in my hand. I don’t know how long I stood like that, but I eventually walked home after leaving the container on the porch.

I received a call from an unidentified number that evening.

The other person’s speech was clear and businesslike. claimed to be a lawyer who needed to talk to me about Mrs. L. Genara’s estate.

He had the incorrect guy, I said. I was merely her neighbor. I never entered her home, not even that.

I was just the person he needed to talk to, he claimed.

The globe began to tilt at that point.

As it happened, Mrs. Genara had not been impoverished.

She wasn’t homeless. She had money. She wasn’t overlooked.

She had toured Europe and Asia as a pianist under a stage name in the 1960s and was now retired. A couple of her late husband’s artworks can be found in small museums. Together, they had amassed a modest but stable fortune.

She had become reclusive after his passing. No children. No near relatives. Only the memories, the paintings, and the house. Slowly at first, then suddenly, dementia had set in. No one looked for her when she stopped checking her account or opening letters.

except from me.

I was informed by the lawyer that she had been observing me for years. jotting down brief observations about me in her journals. On certain days, she was unable to recall my name. She referred to me as “the kind one” on some days. But it had meant something that I was always there.

She left her home for me.

Not the house alone. The whole property. Her selection of music. Her husband’s original paintings, a couple. And in the end, he read me a handwritten note, his voice trembling a little.

“To the one who remembered I existed— You restored my dignity without requesting anything,” the letter read.

The only thing I can do in this world is to express my gratitude.

Live well, please. Let this place serve as a reminder that good deeds speak louder than words.
I was devastated when I sat in the lawyer’s office.

Nothing noteworthy has been done by me. I had only checked to make sure she wasn’t hungry. I had spoken with her. treated her as though she were important.

At first, I was unsure about what to do with the house. It was badly in need of repairs. The pipes were old, the roof was falling, and the flooring creaked dangerously. I had the want to sell it, take the money, and start over.

Then I passed through it, though. Bits of her past were scattered everywhere. Music sheets in stacks. ancient scarves. Images from places she could hardly recall seeing. A framed newspaper clipping of her performance at Madrid’s Teatro Real was discovered by me. She was only nineteen.

I was unable to let it go.

So I got to work correcting it.

I made repairs using the small amount of money she had left in a different account. Neither the art nor the albums were touched by me. I maintained the living room as she had requested. Even the wind chimes that hardly made a sound anymore were maintained on the porch.

Word got around the neighborhood.

Those who had previously turned a blind eye now began to inquire.

“Did she truly abandon you like that?”
“You now reside there?”
“What will you do with this place?”

I gave a shrug. I told them that I still hadn’t worked it out.

About six months after her death, I posted a folding sign on the porch one afternoon:

ALL AGES WELCOME, FREE COFFEE, AND COMMUNITY PIANO HOURS

Three children arrived on that first Saturday.

A senior then stated that he hadn’t played since college. When she touched the keys again, a woman who had taught music in the past started crying. Pastries were brought. A pile of books was donated.

People now arrive and depart every Saturday. They listen, play, and converse. With coffee in hand, some people simply sit on the porch and listen to the chimes of whatever breeze happens to blow by.

It everything revolves around Mrs. Genara’s piano.

I didn’t promote it. I never made any internet posts. However, thousands continued to arrive. I suppose word of mouth. Or something else, perhaps.

Araceli, a woman, stopped by one day. Curly-haired, in her mid-thirties, and full of inquiries. She informed me that her father had performed with Genara in a downtown jazz club in the 1970s. A faded picture of the two of them laughing over a piano bench was shown to me.

She volunteered to assist me with archiving some of the cassettes and music sheets. In the end, we spent hours going through boxes. Speaking. I’m laughing. Occasionally, I cry a little.

Since then, we have been dating.

It’s funny how life goes.

For all those years, I believed I was doing her a service. I was the giver, the helper. However, it turns out that I was the one who was saved.

I had a purpose because of her. Another chance. A house.

And in some way, she caused a hole in the barrier I had erected around myself following the divorce. I had believed for years that I had nothing else to contribute to society. However, I was reminded by that elderly woman that simply turning up may make a big difference.

Don’t wait for permission to care if you witness someone being neglected, forgotten, or left behind.

Simply do it.

You can never tell who they were once.
You can never be sure of their identity.

Years later, you may find yourself standing on a porch, heart full, and wondering how you managed to survive without them.