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“I’m Joseline.” She holds out her hand.
I stand and shake it. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Thank you for coming in to meet with me as a potential volunteer. Please, come to my office.”
Minutes later, Joseline and I are in her office, discussing the various volunteer opportunities. I’m almost overwhelmed with the different needs. I shouldn’t be given my experience.
“I see you have some phone experience as well,” Joseline says, looking over the resumé I sent in.
“Yes. Three years volunteering for the twenty-four-hour hotline in one of our districts in New York City. After that, I spent the past three years being a companion to women in the ED or in the middle of a crisis.”
She looks at me across the desk. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
I give her a tight smile. “No one does this kind of work because it’s easy.”
“You’re right about that.”
The empathy that fills her voice comforts me. I’m also grateful that she doesn’t continue to look at me with some sort of expectation that I’ll divulge my entire life story to her.
It’s as if she knows the women and few men who volunteer or work here come with their own reasons. But no one is obligated to or forced to relay what it is that brought them here.
“Five to ten hours a week is what many volunteers do,” Joseline says as she stands from the table. “Naturally, if you can only do that many hours a month, we understand. Most of our volunteers have full-time jobs and lives outside of this service.
Not to mention the toll this type of work can take on someone. We encourage everyone to pace themselves.”
I nod as we head out of her office for a tour of the facilities.
“I probably can do a minimum of ten hours. Though, I am in the process of opening my own gallery, which will take up a huge amount of my time.”
“Art gallery?” she inquires with interest.
“Yes. It’s walking distance from here, which is part of the reason I chose to volunteer here.”
She nods. “That’s so interesting. What type of artwork will you feature?”
I explain to Joseline my vision for the gallery.
“Most of the art will be contemporary, I’m assuming?” she asks.
“Yes, I have a number of artists that I’m reaching out to from New York and there are some art fairs I’ll be attending over the next couple of months to spread the word.”
The next few months will be busy but at the same time, exciting.
“Maybe …” She trails off. “Never mind.” She turns down the hallway, directing us toward the call center. Victoria’s House has a twenty-four-hour call line.
However, the look in her eyes before she cut herself off won’t let me drop it.
“What is it?” Perhaps she’s an art fan.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s something if you thought to bring it up,” I counter.
She stops just before we enter the room. “A couple of months ago, my grandmother, mi abuela, moved to Florida to be closer to my mother and uncle. She left her home to me.”
I listen intently, wondering where this story is going.
“While I was cleaning some things out, I found a series of paintings in her attic. They weren’t even framed, but they’re gorgeous. On the back I discovered that mi abuela signed and dated them.
