Keeping Hands Ready...

...for Broads in need

Before every Broad closes up her heart and throws away the key we should talk about keeping the door open.

Thats my grandson’s tiny hand up there wrapped around mine and inspiring me to remember that sometimes just a touch, a whisper, a gentle smile, and a question can change everything.

I am just back from meeting him in person for the first time and as all of my friends who already grandma’s or in my case Birdie, have told me, “Nothing can prepare you.” This level of love is ridiculous. It’s also an inspiration to remember who I am, what I do, what I have always done and to get my myself back to that place.

These past few months have been hard on so many of us with hopes and dreams and tired limbs from everything we have done for so many decades. It’s easy to slam the door and shut ourselves off from the reality we think we are facing.

Please do not do it.

Following a week of baby, son, and daughter-in-law love, serious altitude sickness, general exhaustion, a hurricane, Covid and the shit show laughing its way to what was once our beloved nation’s capital, I was waiting in a lobby for a ride to the airport. (Airpots and flying after not doing it for five years..OMG!)

Besides Madonna, there was was another woman waiting for the very early shuttle. I stopped and glanced at her, got over my temporary sadness for the world around me, and really looked at her. My Kris Radishness went into high gear. I could tell by looking at her that she was a Broad in need. So I went to work.

We had to wait for the driver to get her coffee and so I put on my Broad Who Cares hat and started to talk. It didn’t take long for her to tell me that she was on her way to Ohio to help her sister make life decisions about their father who needed to go into hospice. That was not everything. I knew there was more because the sadness in her eyes held another story.

“Oh, and my husband of thirty-plus years told me he doesn’t love me any longer and wants a divorce.”

She had lots of luggage. If we pay attention there is a way to figure these things out.

We talked. I mostly listened and told her I had written a book about what she was going through and shared what it was. I hugged her twice and told her everything would be okay because we are Broads and in the end it is always going to be okay.

It’s really a simple thing to keep your hands and heart open, to keep looking for a fellow Broad, or even a woman who wants to be a Broad, but has always been afraid to get the correct bra or throw it away and let gravity rule the day.

We need each other now more than ever.

Please keep your heart open and your hands ready and always look for someone who has a lot of baggage.

And now, as we did in the old days of journalism…###…this one is over.