MISS REBECCA - TEACHER

Meet Miss Rebecca. Her name is Rebecca Green, she’s 85, and she’s been a fixture for three decades at Thomas Circle in downtown Washington. This tiny woman lived at Bethany House, the women's shelter at N Street Village, and no one who ever served lunch there will ever forget her.

What distinguishes her, even at 85, is her spirit. She lights up the lunchroom with her dignity and her vitality. Over the years, she has even become a celebrity of sorts, featured in several newspaper stories as “the pigeon lady.”

Every day for as long as anyone in the Massachusetts and Vermont Avenue circle could remember, Miss Rebecca found a way to gather a couple bags of sunflower seeds and nuts and spread them at the foot of the Martin Luther statue for flocks of pigeons who gathered. They ate from her hand. They settled on her shoulder. She’s as close to St. Francis as we’ll see, one of her neighbors said.

For us, more than anything else, she’s a teacher. A teacher of really important lessons.

We first met her delivering a Bethany meal two years ago. That piqued our anticipation as we joined the Thanksgiving serving crew last November, and we were anxious to see Miss Rebecca again. About 75 women joined Myron Hanke’s pre-meal songfest, and the crowd grew to more than 100 as we hustled the turkey, salad and mashed potatoes to the women. But Miss Rebecca was no where in sight.

When we asked, we were told that she’s been sick. She underwent surgery for internal bleeding and is now living in an assisted living center in Cleveland Park, where by all accounts, she still worries about her neighbors, the staff at Luther Place Memorial Church – and her pigeons.

How could that be a surprise. Here is a lady who has lived by her wits and the occasional odd job for 85 years, in institutions, in homeless shelters and on the streets. Yet her life always has been one of reaching out.

When others would have been preoccupied with their vantage point, she stresses the focal point – not where she was or was looking from, but where she was looking to. When she should have been obsessed with caring for herself and her own survival, Miss Rebecca turned her attention instead to people around her and her birds.

So often, we are preoccupied with where we are and what we’re doing. Miss Rebecca has a different perspective. She starts with her pride and her humility, and she measures herself by what she can give others. What a lesson. Hers has been a life of sacrifice so that those around her – neighbors, table-mates, shelter-mates or pigeons – benefit. Rejoice and learn the lesson of this remarkable lady and her philosophy of life: “I’d rather give than to receive.”

— Haydee and Jim Toedtman

Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist