The Door She Left Unlocked

Joe's Two Cents

I lost somebody today.

Her name was Gwen.

Most of y'all won't know who she was. She wasn't famous. Didn't have a bunch of money. Didn't do anything that would've gotten her name in the newspaper.

She was just a woman who lived a few houses down from me when I was a kid.

And she changed my life.

I grew up in a house where things weren't always easy. My folks were young, divorced, and busy living their own lives. I spent a hell of a lot of time by myself.

Gwen had a daughter around my age. We became friends when we were little, and somewhere along the way I started spending more and more time at their house.

I couldn't tell you exactly when it happened.

One day I was the kid from down the street.

Next thing I knew, I was eating dinner at their table, hanging around half the night, and sleeping on their couch.

By the time I was a teenager, I was a pretty angry kid.

Mad at my parents. Mad at the world. Mad about things I didn't have the words to explain yet.

Gwen let me be mad.

She'd listen to me bitch about whatever was going on. Sometimes she'd give me her opinion. Sometimes she'd tell me I was full of shit. Sometimes she'd just sit there and let me get it out.

And she kept feeding me.

I don't know how many dinners I ate in that woman's house over the years. Couldn't begin to count 'em.

She never made a big production out of any of it.

I was just there.

And that was that.

The Unlocked Door

There were nights I'd show up at Gwen's house at one or two in the morning.

Sometimes later.

Everybody would be asleep. I'd open the front door, walk inside, and settle down on the couch.

I'd hear her call from the bedroom.

"Joseph, is that you?"

"Yeah. I'm just gonna lay down and sleep."

"Okay."

And she'd go back to sleep.

That was the whole conversation.

Now, I should probably tell y'all something.

My name's Joseph, but I've gone by Joe for as long as I can remember. Never much cared for anybody calling me Joseph.

Except Gwen.

She always called me Joseph.

I might've rolled my eyes or acted like it bothered me, but the truth is, I loved hearing her say it.

I don't know that I ever told her that.

Somehow, when she said my name, it sounded different.

Like I belonged there.

I always figured they were just the kind of people who didn't lock their doors.

Years later, her daughter told me something I never knew.

"Mom left that door unlocked for you."

I've thought about that more times than I can count.

She went to bed knowing I might show up.

She didn't know what kind of night I'd had. Didn't know whether I'd been fighting with somebody, whether I was upset, or whether I just didn't feel like being alone.

Didn't matter.

She left the door unlocked.

For me.

I wish I could go back and tell that angry teenage kid what that meant.

I don't think he understood it at the time.

She Let Me Be One of Hers

Every Mother's Day, I'd get Gwen a card.

I'd drop it off at her house, and she'd put it up with the cards from her own kids.

Not off to the side somewhere.

Right there with the rest of 'em.

Looking back, I don't know that I ever asked whether it was okay to think of her as another mother.

I just did.

And she let me.

That's something I appreciate more now than I ever could've appreciated back then.

She didn't owe me a damn thing.

She had her own family. Her own problems. Her own life.

She could've been nice to me when I visited and sent me home at dinnertime.

Nobody would've thought anything of it.

Instead, she made room.

At the table.

On the couch.

In her day.

In her family.

And she did it so naturally that I never really stopped to think about how much she was giving me.

Coffee and Cigarettes

Some of my favorite memories of Gwen are probably the ones that'd sound the least interesting to anybody else.

Sitting outside with her late at night.

Drinking coffee.

Smoking cigarettes.

Talking about whatever the hell came into our heads.

Sometimes we'd laugh until we couldn't breathe.

Sometimes I'd be carrying something around that I needed to get off my chest.

And sometimes we didn't have much to say at all.

I can still picture those nights.

I can still hear her voice.

Funny how you can forget a hundred things you did last week but remember the sound of somebody laughing thirty years ago.

I'd give just about anything to sit out there and have one more cup of coffee with her.

The Number on the Refrigerator

Years went by.

I grew up, moved around, got busy with work, and did what people do.

But I never forgot Gwen.

About ten years ago, I heard she was starting to get forgetful, so I called her.

She was happy to hear from me.

We talked for a while, and before we hung up, I gave her my phone number.

I told her if she ever needed anything, she could call me.

And I told her I loved her.

I meant every word.

A little while back, her daughter told me something else I didn't know.

Gwen had written down my number and put it on the refrigerator beside the phone.

She never took it down.

All those years later, I was still there in her kitchen.

I don't know why that gets to me as much as it does.

Maybe because she spent so much of my childhood making sure I knew where to find her.

And when she got older, I wanted her to know where to find me.

Thank You, Gwen

Her daughter got in touch with me today to tell me she'd passed away.

I tried to go back to work.

Got a few things done, too.

But Gwen kept finding her way into my thoughts.

Eventually, I stopped to have some coffee and a cigarette.

And there she was again.

Sitting outside with me.

Laughing.

Listening.

Letting me be that angry kid who didn't always know what to do with himself.

I've been trying to figure out what I want to say about her.

And I keep coming back to two words.

Thank you.

Thank you for feeding me when you didn't have to.

Thank you for listening to me bitch.

Thank you for putting my Mother's Day cards up with the rest.

Thank you for letting me sleep on your couch.

Thank you for letting me love you.

Thank you for loving me.

Thank you for calling me Joseph.

Everybody else knew me as Joe. That's what I wanted 'em to call me.

But I loved being Joseph to you.

I always did.

And thank you for leaving that damn door unlocked.

I hope you knew what you meant to me.

I think you did.

I hope you knew that you made a difference in my life.

A big one.

And I hope you knew that even when I wasn't sitting at your kitchen table anymore, I still carried a little piece of that house around with me.

I always will.

I don't know what happens when we die. I'd like to think the people we've loved can somehow hear us for a little while afterward.

So if you're listening, Gwen, I've got one more thing to tell you.

You did good.

You took in a kid who wasn't yours and made him feel like he was.

You gave him somewhere to go when he didn't know where else to be.

And you showed him a kind of love he didn't have to earn.

I never forgot it.

I never will.

Love you, Gwen.

— Joseph

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