When it Rains

A new friend of mine, Becky Santo, who I met through my brother’s sui­cide is going through a ter­ri­bly hard time right now. Her son died the same way last year.  I’ve been sur­prised how you form fast bonds in a sit­u­a­tion like this, because the level of open­ness it takes to dis­cuss the pain and other issues involved breaks down a lot of barriers.

Becky is a small busi­ness owner — she refur­bishes fur­ni­ture and sells knick knacks and can­dles and other bits of charm­ing sunny home decor .  Busi­ness fell off with the reces­sion, and her son’s death didn’t help things.  She thought she would have to close the store, but, friends helped her out with a move to a new loca­tion in Home­wood. She was mak­ing a fresh start.  Though it is so very hard to move on, her out­look was improv­ing.  But this Sat­ur­day, she got robbed at her new loca­tion. Iron­i­cally, it’s one of those places that you’d actu­ally feel very safe vis­it­ing.  I sup­pose that was the idea, a nice low pro­file lit­tle bou­tique on a shaded street.  No one would expect it.

I’ve vis­ited her since then, and other busi­ness own­ers on the street have been intro­duc­ing them­selves and offer­ing to help her watch.  Still, she’s been man­ning the store all alone, and is fright­ened and sim­ply over­whelmed.  Every time she seems to be doing bet­ter, she gets kicked off her feet again, she says.

So, if any­one is in the mood to do some­thing just plain nice and help­ful, maybe you could stop by Minerva’s in Home­wood this month. It’s on Lin­den Avenue, which is just a right turn off of Oxmoor.  Even if you don’t buy any­thing, every moment a legit­i­mate cus­tomer is in the store, it eases her mind.  And if you do find some­thing cute, hey, all the better.