An Extraordinary Person: Indeed!

Yesterday I met a really wonderful woman! A friend invited me to lunch, told me she was meeting up with a friend of hers, Sabrina.

Sabrina is the kind of person stories are written about. She was a basket baby. You know when mother's give birth but don't want their child? She was dropped off at a doorstep in a basket. Fairy tale type come true. Sabrina is now a woman in her 60s, retired but oh so still busy. 

She adopts animals and people non stop. Really she does! She has 17 cats! 17! And she's a self-proclaimed dog lover, not a cat lover. She has 2 dogs. Wishes she could also own wild animals such as lions, and tigers and bears (oh my!)

Self made millionaire, Sabrina came literally from nothing other than a basket which was all she owned in the world. Grew up (bouncing from orphanage to foster home to foster home, yatta yatta), fell in love, and together she and her man owned a beauty salon. This salon became highly successful. They struck it rich. So rich he left her for a much younger woman. Fairy tale has a classic yet cliché turn of events so far...

So, alone, she kept building her fortune, one of her mothers left her everything she owned. Cha-ching, her bank account grew even bigger! One day she met this young man, a black homeless with broad shoulders of a young man. Sabrina could not bare to see him in the shits. She offered her basement as a living dwelling for this young man. 10 or so years later, he still lives there and is a lifelong friend to our charming Sabrina. After my friend breaks up with her boyfriend. Her narcotic-addicted boyfriend. Who also, like the broad shouldered young handsome black man, is homeless. She offers him room and board. If she let's cats, which she doesn't even like, live in her home and eat her food, why not fellow humans in need of the same necessities right? So now she has 2 roommates.

Then, one day her ex-husband brakes up with his pretty young new wife (or she dumps him for a richer man). Tells Sabrina the biggest mistake he's ever made was to leave her. Begs her to take him back. His young wife kept the house, so guess what happens? Yes, she also offers room and board to the man who left her years ago! But told him he would never again share her heart, or her bedroom.

This is Sabrina in a nutshell. Maybe I shoulda brought a nutcracker to rescue her, hope she can breath in there... But you see, Sabrina (which is her real name, but I'm sure it's okay to share her story here since, who could ever trace her?) Where was I... hey Shrek is on! Cool. So... Sabrina is a person with a huge heart. The biggest you could ever encounter. She still allows herself to be amazed by incredible stories (like some man who grew up in the U.K. with wild animals who recently re-connected with his childhood ape in some African jungle, totally by fluke chance of luck, and this ape recognized him, and HUGGED him) as she's telling this story she pauses, tries to remember the ape's name because it's so important to her, then looks at my necklace and oohhss and aahhhss at it, then asks what was she talking about in the first place. We remind her, then she goes back to trying to remember the ape's name. She's all over the place. But through all this, as I'm listening, I am really fascinated. Touched by her innocence, her generosity, her kindness.

When I grow up, I want to be like Sabrina. Don't be surprised if you ever see a biography about an incredible woman called Sabrina. If you do, buy it for your daughter, tell her I told her she'd be inspired by her story to become a wonderful human being.