All About Nina

Nina is my Wednesday Girl. We’ve been meeting every wednesdays for few months now.  We’re both Insurance consultants for a Top Insurance Firm and in our work, we sometimes team up with a  buddy to give us a push in our down moments .  So we agreed to go together.  I don’t really go on two’s but this kind of team up helped us both since we’re into corporate businesses. Little did i know that there’s a reason for our partnership…..Friendship.

Nina is 4 yrs my senior, separated, and has 3 children. All of them finished college thru her hard work. One of them, she helped to join the company since he just graduated. She’s a jolly person, with a positive outlook in life. During our break, we would spend afternoon coffees talking about our life and sales experiences. We would end up the day laughing, looking forward to our next Wednesday meeting. But this Wednesday is different. Just after we finished  early with our sales calls, we decided to spend more hours together in our favorite coffee shop. Our conversation was different, it was more personal. She told me more of her life stories. And i discovered, behind her smiles are bitterness. She was befriended and she trusted people  who took advantage of that trust. She lost her savings and ended financially broke. What moved me most is the fact that, even her own family gave up on her the time she needed them most.  I felt how low she she was that very moment. So, that explains her persistent request on team up. She needs someone to talk to and someone to push her to move on. As I listen to her stories, I saw how vulnerable she was. It was hard to hold back my tears. I don’t know how to break the subject. I don’t like to see her in this situation. She’s very different from the Nina I know. After she broke into tears, and got her composure, she apologized. It took her years keeping all what she felt, and I was the first person who listened to her hurt aches. She said “God is good, she gives me one person whom I can trust to listen without hesitation”. I’ve known Nina for 15 years I guess, but we just knew each other simply as associates, not really as friends. There are times she would ask me out to join her in a sales call but with my schedules, I don’t really have enough time. Maybe, those times, she thought I was the one to talk to…but I ignored. Years back I remembered, we would spend time talking about our work,  but never did I realized the pain she was going thru because it never showed in her.  Whenever we meet in the office i see how she wanted to be a friend, but i paid little attention. Now, I felt , I did the best thing, to listen, to make up for the lost opportunity of really getting to know her. This helped her, and the more that I felt I have a responsibility for a friend, not just an associate. To keep her going and to see that she recover, and get back on her toes again the way I know her. On my way home, I asked myself. Why me? What can I do to help her?  I know i did my part that i should have given before…by being a friend when she felt alone.  

Just a thought: Some people are cruel.  And fooling others is the name of their game. Why do people take advantage of ones goodness? We are not selfish to help. If one asks too much of what we can give, and feels bad when we can’t meet their demands, are we being selfish? And  is it bad when you trust without hesitation?  Why did she lost her family the time she needed them most? I  feel sorry for those people who fool others. Cannot they realize that once they loose one’s trust, it will take more than sweat to win it back?  The feeling of loosing our family teaches us something…to be stronger and not be too dependent. I know Nina will survive all of these. And our Wednesday coffees will never be the same as this wednesday.