There was a woman on my street everyone called the “crazy crack lady.” Yellow house, busted porch, smelled weird all the time. She’d yell at nothing, laugh randomly, sometimes cry in the street. You know the type people warn their kids about.
I crossed the street when I saw her. I laughed nervously with friends about her. I definitely judged her.
One night I saw her barefoot in the road, screaming at the sky. Like *full-on begging*, yelling for something to be given back to her. Then she dropped to her knees and started crying in a way that didn’t sound fake or dramatic—just broken.
I went inside and told myself it wasn’t my problem.
A few weeks later, there were sirens right outside my house. Not the normal distant ones—the loud, right-there kind. A woman had collapsed, bleeding badly, and everyone was panicking.
And the person helping her the most?
The crazy crack lady.
She was calm. Like weirdly calm. Pressing towels to the woman’s head, talking to her quietly, telling her to stay awake and not “drift.” I remember thinking she sounded like someone who knew exactly what it felt like to lose control.
When the ambulance arrived, the injured woman grabbed her hand and said, “You saved my life.”
I watched the crack lady’s face when she heard that. It was like she didn’t know what to do with it. Like no one had ever said something like that to her before.
After that, I couldn’t unsee it.
She didn’t magically get better. She still yelled sometimes. Still scared people. Still struggled. But now I noticed other things—like how she watched the street at night, or how careful her hands were when she handled anything fragile.
One morning I left a bottle of water on her porch. Didn’t knock. Just left it. It was gone the next day.
She never thanked me. But once, she nodded at me when I walked by. Just once.
I don’t call her the crazy crack lady anymore.
I call her the woman who made me realize how easy it is to turn someone into a joke instead of a person—until they do something that forces you to actually *see* them.
I don’t really know what the point of this is. I guess… be careful who you decide isn’t human anymore.
Comments