Friday, February 22, 2008

ortralla

some days you just wake up and go to work and go home and nothing amazing happens.

and then, there are days like today.


this morning i had a customer who just wanted to pay her bill. and then asked me off-handedly about internet for her laptop. i told her i would need to see the laptop to figure out what card she needed for it. she told me that she was going to have to go home and get it and wanted to know what time i took lunch. i told her i would wait for her to come back. about an hour and a half later she comes in with the world's oldest and heaviest laptop. and was making jokes that it hadn't been even turned on in years.


as i was activating her service, she then told me the story of WHY it hadn't been turned on. in 2003 she bought it for her daughter, Ortralla. who was a sophmore in high school. who was then killed 2 months later, by her boyfriend. and then she then told me about how she set up a foundation for her daughter.
and then told me that her computer hadnt been turned on since her daugher's death. so i was happy to make this machine work. it took the better part of the day installing and updating all the software. and trying to make the silly thing work. FINALLY at 2 i got it to work and called her to tell her that it was ready.

when she showed up, she asked me to walk her through getting online and using the card. when we logged in, i had set her home page to yahoo and once it loaded, she all but shoved me aside and logged into her foundation site with shaking hands.

once the page loaded, i could feel the pride. and the happiness. and the feeling of a dream being realized as her daughter's face stared back at her on her OWN website. and she began to cry. and i almost began to cry. and she hugged me and thanked jesus and god and me and god and me and jesus and me and jesus and god one more again. and then hugged me again. and again.



and THAT. that is an amazing day.




if you want the story, go HERE

foundation website, go HERE

6 comments:

Tenacious B said...

I woulda hugged you too, had I been there.

christelpistol said...

it was incredible!

Ian Townsend said...

amazing. See? You MOVE people.

You goddess you.

Tasty said...

Rock on, sister. Love it when we're open to the fantastic stuff that walks through our (YOUR!) door!

Unknown said...

i want to hug you a reallywholebunchlot and i can't yet because of you and the there and me and the here so instead i sent the ortralla foundation 10 bucks and will sit on my hands till june...k?

christelpistol said...

lola, make sure you dont do that right after a mani. it tends to ruin the paint.