Beth

Beth wears glasses, and she has a way of peering through them that’s fiercely intent.

I hadn’t realized this, but whenever someone would talk to her she would lean forward, squint a little through the glasses in between her hair, graying at the bangs and cropped at her forehead so it frames her glasses and face almost in a rectangle.

I’d seen Beth almost weekly for the last few months, but I realized until now it was much too easy to not pay enough attention to her.

She’s a short, round woman who walks with a slight limp when you stop to pay attention, but the problem is getting someone to pay that much attention. I was guilty of not taking enough notice.

It’s too easy to take a glance at someone and assume—based on one quick look—that you don’t have enough in common to strike up a decent conversation.

I don’t know why, but the middle-aged woman with slightly stringy hair and a smile missing a tooth seemed foreign to me, someone I wouldn’t be able to relate to.

That was my pitfall. It was easy to notice that throaty, nervous laugh and slightly flustered demeanor and move on.

But last week she taught me something I didn’t know.

Beth is a teacher’s aid at the high school down the road from where I live. It’s the party school. Drugs and booze are pretty synonymous with South High.

But whether it’s her 18-year-old son or day-to-day interaction with students there, that intense attentiveness applies to kids struggling through high school.

I had no idea there was a teenager living on the roof of the Subway restaurant next door to my apartment building. I had no idea some of the high schoolers loitering on the stairs in front of the buildings on my block had no home, no where else to go.

Beth knew though. She knew most of them by name.

She knew that every day one of them heads to work at a grocery store a few blocks away, buys non-perishable food and stashes it on the rooftop where he spends every night, 40 feet away from my bedroom.

I’ve had people coming to my door complaining about teenagers sitting in front of my apartment building. I doubt any of them realized some of them were trying to pick up a second job at McDonald’s or sleeping in the park across the street.

It amazes me how many people view a few kids on the stairs as hooligans. It amazed Beth too.

When one of them asked if he could rent a room from her for just two weeks her response was, ”Tanner, I’d take you in for free in a heartbeat, but I’m already in trouble with my manager.”

It turns out she had already been housing a new adult. An 18-year-old right out of high school had been kicked out of his home because of issues with his dad’s girlfriend. But after the management found out he was staying there without being on the lease, he had to go.

So, even if I saw them as more than hooligans, I definitely didn’t see just how much attention and care Beth gave to those students.

It sounds blunt to say she’s easy to overlook, but Beth’s impact on those teenagers is definitely apparent.

By the end of listening to her that night, the smile missing a tooth had gone from foreign to friendly. I’m sure that’s exactly the effect it has on the kids she interacts with, nurtures, and protects every day.

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