"You're blind but your life is better than mine," she told me, and it was impossible not to agree.
Her speech was slurred, whether by drugs, disability or both, I could not tell. Neither was it relevant to me.
Despite a reasonably common public perception that nothing could be worse than blindness, this desperate woman living on the streets of Civic recognised there are far worse human conditions. Perhaps she also recognised her condition attracts very little public sympathy.
We met at a Civic interchange bus stop. This woman approached me asking for help. She said people were trying to rape her and could I help.
Having quelled my immediate instinct to tell her to go away, I replied that I could not help her because this was a matter for police.
She persisted, that she needed my help because she did not trust the police. I shook my head and repeated what seemed to me the only sensible advice that there was nothing I could do to help her.
So she changed tack asking if I would be her friend. I had to admit to myself I was not nearly a good enough person to be her friend. I would have to leave that to the good folk at St Vincent de Paul or similar organisation.
I was reminded of my recent donation to St Vincent de Paul to support someone doing the Vinnies Sleepout. That was about as far as my goodness could extend to support this woman. Certainly, I felt bad that there could be no room for her in my comfortable house.
But she left me to reflect on her parting message which began this missive. "You're blind but your life is better than mine."
Of that I had absolutely no doubt. And I suspect my life had always been better than hers.
Even my basic, year 10 education may have been more than what was granted to her. And my first job in a Chatswood factory putting together electrical meters gave me the opportunity to meet good people and ultimately move to Canberra and have a fulfilling career.
My life was, and I suspect always had been, better than this troubled woman's. But it takes special people, of whom I am not one, to help people such as her.
Some Civic business people have recently complained about the negative impact on trade caused by some of these people. As with me, I imagine the businesses troubled by the homeless expect someone else to support them - and preferably remove them from sight.
On my way to meetings I skirt them where they cluster around the entrance to the Griffin Centre. They are drawn because people are there who care enough to provide them with food.
For almost 40 years, the ragged people of Civic were supported by Stasia Dabrowski OAM. More than once she offered me sustenance from the weekly soup kitchen she ran on a corner of Garema Place.
Recently a sculpture was installed in Garema Place to honour her work, which saw her feed up to 500 people a night. Polish-born, she was known as Canberra's Soup Kitchen Lady and was the 1996 Canberra Citizen of the Year. She died in 2020 aged 94.
Her grandson, Josh Kenworthy, helps to continue her remarkable work at the Griffin Centre. Now, as I dodge those people who benefit from the legacy of Stasia Dabrowski, I reflect on those parting words of that troubled woman, "You're blind but your life is better than mine."
I am reminded of a business in Civic from which I occasionally bought a sandwich but no longer do. You see, the nice man refused to charge me because I am blind though not short of money.
I didn't need his help or sympathy, but my would-be friend from the Civic bus interchange does.
