The Woman Who Didn’t Look Back

On New Year’s Day, Rob, Megan and I headed over to the dog park. The weather was just gorgeous, in the low 70s, a cloudless sky,  and the park was crowded. While Rob and Megan played Frisbee with Noah and Nika, I sat with a group of the regulars.

Colleen, who is unemployed right now, used to work for a company that is hired by banks or owners of homes and apartments to remove furniture and anything else that has been left behind by the renters or previous owners. Many of these places are foreclosed homes.

But last year, a friend asked Colleen if she and their sons could do her a favor – empty out a multimillion dollar mansion. The friend couldn’t pay her because she hadn’t been paid by whoever had hired her, but told Colleen that she and her sons could keep everything they removed. So one morning, Colleen and her son drove their truck over to the mansion.

As soon as they drove up to the place, Colleen was blown away. This place was one of the sprawling mansions you see around here that usually belong to the movers and shakers in the equestrian community. But this place had belonged to a woman who owned a health care agency. “I walked into her bedroom, opened this tremendous walk-in closet, and just balked. Inside were stacks of shoeboxes that had never been opened, handbags that had never been used, clothes with the tags still in them. We removed at least 50 pairs of Loeffler shoes, dozens of Luis Vuitton handbags, Chanel suits.”

A pair of Loeffler shoes goes for between $200-$800. A Louis Vuitton handbag sells for between $800 -$1000. A Chanel suits starts at about $5,000. When Colleen started tallying up the cost of everything this woman had left behind, it was staggering. The Loeffler shoes alone were worth about forty grand. Then there were Gucci shoes and handbags… Colleen figured the woman had left behind about a hundred grand worth of goods. None of it had ever been used.

Then there were the furniture items – an exquisite dining room table, a set of sofas, the outrageously expensive alarm system….

“My God,” one of the women exclaimed. “You could’ve sold it all on ebay and made a fortune.”

“Nope. I sent most of the shoes and handbags to my niece. I kept the dining room table and the sofas.”

“She was a hoarder,” another woman remarked.

Colleen nodded. “Sure. But it went deeper than that.”

You sometimes read about stuff like this – Imelda Marcos and her 1200 pairs of shoes, for instance. But this seemed truly extreme. “Why did she leave all the stuff behind?” I asked.

Colleen shrugged. “She didn’t feel like moving it. Look, this woman was so wealthy that one afternoon she went shopping and in just  a couple of hours, blew more than eighteen grand on clothes that she probably never wore. Pocket change to her.” Colleen tapped her temple. “Some screws loose.”

On the way home, I told Rob and Megan the story. I thought about what it night be like to have that kind of money, where eighteen grand is pocket change and you don’t look back as you drive away from a hundred grand worth of stuff you never used. Does it change you in some fundamental way for the worst? Or was this woman always like that and now she’s simply more so?

Here’s a list of the 50 most generous philanthropists in 2011. I hope these people outnumber the ones like this woman who never looked back.

 

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18 Responses to The Woman Who Didn’t Look Back

  1. Nicole says:

    Anyone catch her current address? You know just in case.

  2. connie cannon says:

    Just imagine how much could be done to help the helpless if we decided to stop spending billions upon billions on war and focused instead on peace. Not an impossible dream. Perhaps someday…..

  3. connie cannon says:

    May I add something here, in the sincere hope that no one will be offended, because there is absolutely no rascism involved. NONE. All thru the holidays we keep seeing these lengthy picto-commercials of little children in other countries who are diseased, starving, homeless, and organizations asking for donations to make the lives of these children better…..feed them, give them medicines, mosquito netting against malaria, etc. Not a single time, not even once, have I seen such a commercial involving homeless, diseased, starving children here in our own country. And I see them myself, living under bridges and in the woods behind stores with a parent or parents who is as homeless and destitute and needy as those little ones in other countries. No one sends ours aid from other countries. Isn’t there something we, as a nation of care-givers, can do to help our own children before we send aid off to third-world countries? Am I being selfish? Just yesterday I saw a pathetic child, perhaps four or five, dirty, runny nose, freezing cold, with a mother, (I assume), who was obviously sober, trying to keep this child warm. She wasn’t begging. But she was pitiably homeless and had all their belongings on an old bicycle. This is America, Land of Plenty. I’d like to do something for our own children, as well as those in other countries. This has bothered me for a long time, and it’s getting worse here day by day, yet we never see anything about it on TV or otherwise. Are we fearful of letting other countries know the USA also has its poor, its poverty-stricken, its dying children living in the streets? I felt guilty for years about feeling this way, but no more. I want help to be given to deserving children in this country FIRST, then to others. Just sayin’…..

  4. Nancy says:

    Can you imagine spending that kind of money on yourself when it could make such a difference in the world? Some people are unconscious.

  5. gypsy says:

    so true that it isn’t what you have or how much or whatever – but what you do with it – the last few years in my own case, since i’ve been living more a “vagabond” life, i am more and more aware of that whole thing of possessions – and what they mean or don’t mean – for example, before i left louisiana this last time, i let all my kids and grandchildren come in and get whatever furniture pieces and things they wanted before i moved – the remaining things i put into storage – but even that disturbs me – a storage room that costs money in which is stored things unused and never seen – now, these are not excess pieces or anything – but nevertheless it makes no sense to me that i have things which could be being used and enjoyed by my children, etc – so i am considering the next step on my own things – great flip story of cj’s – so refreshing to hear of someone doing good just for the sake of doing good –

  6. connie cannon says:

    Thank goodness there are flip sides to the coin, such as Dr. Forrest M. Bird, who has too many letters after his name to list here. He is a billionaire several times over;
    a medical doctor and astrophysiologist, among his other numerous academic accomplishments, and he invented the respiratory devices that replaced the external iron lung….devices that save millions of live worldwide each year. In spite of his genius being far above any chart and his economic situation, he GIVES so much to so many in need, quietly, with no fanfare and no publicity, expecting nothing in return.
    He, however, is an atheist, and his conviction is that we must do everything we are able to assist mankind in this lifetime that he believes is the only one we have, and then at its end, there is nothing more. So he isn’t prompted to his extraordinary good deeds by any sense of karma or “heaven”. He simply is a man whose human kindness
    and generosity come from a heart that loves life, is grateful for his genius, and pays his gifts forward without any expectation of reward. And, he is very down to earth.
    An unsung hero who is embarrassed if his philanthropy is revealed….and I shouldn’t be revealing it, but MY spiritual convictions dictate that such a person deserves appreciation and gratitude and acknowledgement. This kind of person balances those who are the opposite, in my opinion, and I thank Universe for those of his rare qualities. HAPPY NEW YEAR, to all! And prosperity, too!

  7. It’s amazing what some people have. There’s plenty of everything to go round in the world if only it could be distributed properly.

    I don’t see, though, that there is anything wrong about ‘making’ lots of money. It depends on the individual and what they do with this. Think of what could be done to help others with millions of dollars/pounds/euros.

    • Rob and Trish says:

      There’s absolutely nothing wrong with making lots of money. May all of us increase our prosperity this year. It’s all about what you do with it.

  8. Lauren Raine says:

    Unbelievable………in a world of so much want, how can people live like that? Driving into Deming, N.M., I have always noticed a real estate project that went belly up, two large double story houses that have never been occupied because they never sold…..so there they sit, year after year, unused. Just about a mile away is a big desert parking lot full of old trailors where people can live without paying, apparently, but they live without electric or water. The contrast always amazed me.

  9. Darren B says:

    I had just watched the Nicolas Roeg
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Roeg
    film “Walkabout” yesterday.A film I bought at the Woodford Folkfest on Wednesday.
    I was just looking up what other films he had directed that I haven’t seen (which is most of them) which I could watch.I decided to try and watch his films from oldest to newest.So the next one I had decided on was
    “Don’t Look Now”.
    Then I come here and see this story “The Woman Who Didn’t Look Back”.
    But I thought it was funny that after reading what your story was about ,that any number of his movie titles could have been the title for your story above.
    Such as ;
    *Insignificance (1985)
    *Eureka (1983)
    *Castaway (1986)
    *Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession (1980)
    *Cold Heaven (1991)
    or even – Walkabout (1971) itself…since she seems to have gone walkabout without her shoes .-)

  10. DJan says:

    I have no wish to be wealthy like that. It must do something awful to you, because most who are able to live like that don’t seem to be the most aware type of person, it seems to me. I wish only to leave a light footprint on the earth. This person doesn’t seem to care about such things!

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