Millie anxiously pushes her cart toward the park. The gates will be opening in a few minutes. She’s always afraid that someone will claim her bench before she gets there.  No one ever has. She’s been coming to Fairmount Park for many years. She thinks of it as her home.

Well, if the truth be told, she doesn’t have a home anymore. She has been homeless since she lost her mother, her job, and her childhood home. She did live in her car for over a year until it stopped working. Millie parked it on the street, and after a month, it was towed away. It’s hard to believe, but that was over thirty years ago.

But Millie survives. It’s difficult not to sleep in the same place for more than a couple of days. She knows her way around the city. She knows every nook and cranny. She knows where it’s safe and where the police will leave you alone as long as you don’t cause any trouble, as long as you don’t act too crazy or smell too bad.

It’s impossible to stay clean when you live on the street. Few places have open bathrooms during the day. She would go in when it wasn’t too busy. And clean her face and all the places people can see and some of the ones they can’t. But would start smelling after a while.

Several times a year, she would go to one of the shelters for a couple of days just so she could take a shower, wash her hair and sleep in a clean bed. The shelters aren’t safe. People will steal the fillings out of your teeth if you aren’t careful. You can’t trust anyone, especially the ones who act like they’re your friends.

She tries not to call attention to herself in any way. She tries her best to be invisible. Millie gets a small check from the government. It’s delivered to a postal box. There’s a guy she knows who will cash the checks for a small fee. She’s cautious with her money and never wastes anything.

She knows where to get free food when she runs out of food stamps. Sometimes it’s a soup kitchen. Millie knows when the restaurants put leftovers in the dumpsters. It’s a crime how much food is wasted.

She keeps all her worldly belongings in her cart. She never goes anywhere without it. She brings the memories of her past with her wherever she goes. In that cart are the remnants of the life and person she used to be before she became invisible.

Oh, the gates are opening. Millie nods her head at the guard and heads toward her bench. Good, no one is there. Millie spends her day here, from first thing in the morning until they lock the gates at night.

This is her life now. She imagines nothing, nothing beyond sitting on this bench every day for the rest of her life. One day someone will find her still body. But Millie’s soul will have finally soared away, or perhaps just slipped away into oblivion. Who knows, Millie doesn’t.

She moves her cart next to the bench and looks at her belongings, and sighs. But then she sits down, takes a deep breath, and looks all around. She feels blessed, that’s right blessed, lucky to spend all her waking hours here in this beautiful and serene place.

Spring is her favorite time in the park, breathing in the fragrance of the flowering trees, the Lilac bushes. The perfume wafts through the air, surrounding her, lifting her spirit with it.

She watches young mothers with their babies and the toddlers running around the fountain. She watches the children grow up and become adults bringing their babies to the park. It’s in this way she still feels connected to the life that goes on around her. Although she doesn’t participate in the pageantry of life, she observes it and remembers it.

She feels as if she plays the most essential part of all. She is the witness to everything beautiful and everything that isn’t. She’s a historian that stands outside and looks in on everything that goes on and makes a note of it.

Where would the world be without the keepers of the history of the world? Why it would be forgotten, unnoticed. It gives her life meaning and purpose, and value. Yes, she is invisible to those around her, but she is essential, just as the air is invisible, but nothing would survive without it.