Angie - you would fall in love with her as soon as you saw her. Exuding loads of warmth, Angie is someone you would like to cuddle up with and go to sleep on her lap. A black, huge woman with a million dollar smile and someone who made me feel at home in Tulsa. Just about the time, I was getting to be homesick, Angie comes joins my journey into this land of many discoveries. Officially, someone who was our tour guide, driver and helper during our trip to Tulsa, Angie would meet us at the Hotel lobby every morning with her energy and broad smile. You can't miss her when you see her and if you want to be embarassed then just ask her a question.
She made friends with every single person in our delegation and spent quality time with them. She had no problems making fun of her big self or of anyone else who was big. One afternoon when we had lunch together, Sriram and myself were giving her tips on losing weight. Angie - No fried stuff, no meat and NO ICE-Cream and I told her...you follow this diet and in a year's time I would come back to propose to you. She promised she would.
The previous night, we had been speaking so much about ice-cream that angie confessed to us that on her way home, she picked up a big box of ice-cream and hid it from her husband. After dinner, she sent her husband away on an errand and quickly gobbled up the ice-cream with relish and she laughed whole-heartedly when she narrated this incident to us. It was a delightful experience.
Guess what? She was a police woman before this and retired a few years back. She actually had an uniform, a gun and a police car. I kept trying to coax her to show the uniform to me and she would go, "ahhhhhhh NOOOOOO!", wait a minute that was too quick, lemme think about it and....."NOOOOOO!" and she will go into raptures of laughter. Oh! adorable angie. There was this one time in her life when she tried to shoot someone on her job and missed and many years later someone tried to shoot her and missed. The most scary moment of her life and she believes she survived because she had missed when she shot someone. She told me about her daughters and how proud she was of them.
Unassuming angie, also works with the juvenile justic court and spends time with young children who have been in jail for offences and are on the verge of becoming criminals. She helps them get out of crime, drug abuse and see some positive things in their life. Volunteering and community service is an integral part of her life.
Angie can become friends with anyone, but keeps her distance. She does say that there is a lot of discrimination still for blacks..and you know what...its not direct any more but more subtle so more difficult to say. I wonder how she has been discriminated and how does she handle it.
It was amazing and fascinating to just watch her talk, laugh and laugh out loud, make friends with ease and just make everyone around her feel so very comfortable. There is so much life, energy and positivity around her that it gets contagious. She gave each one of us a hug on our last evening together and asked us to take care. There was so much sincerity, delight and happiness in her voice I had a few tears swell up and somewhere I realised we had touched each other's heart. I gave her a flying kiss as I saw her drive away the curbway and she flew one back to me..saying she loves me and will wait for me next year.
In our journey of life, many a person we meet, each has the ability to impact our lives and we have the ability to impact theirs. It is but upto us how we do it. In angie I saw a person who had no qualms about making friends, meeting new people, inspiring young people, showing a path for youth who have gone astray and also loving everyone unconditionally. There is a lot I learnt from her attitude and the best thing was that if you want to compliment someone just go ahead and do it, do it with grace and honesty and you will spread more smiles.
A lovely human being, God Bless her!
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