Politics/Community Involvement

I went to the Antiquarian Society to read the letters and the oratory a number of times and one day after reading her letters, one day I went to her cemetery. I went there twice and I went to the little office where they keep the ledger of way back—I mean from the beginning of time in this—it's the Hope Cemetery here in Worcester.  And they not only took me to her grave site but they told me that her husband and her were buried side by side and that Abby was buried in the middle and that her feet were facing the stone so that I felt it was okay to sit on her feet, leaning back on her stone.  One day after reading her letters I meditated and that's when the feelings started–I am going to cry—that's when I tapped into her.  It's like her spirit joined me or something it was incredible.  And during the process of the painting and when I was doing the head, I had a long shelf here and I had a large half gallon can there, you see it there. That's my can of mineral spirits and this was full of empty cans and other stuff that I used to have and this was empty. I had stayed up all night long and I had painted it and I had stepped back and everything was dead quiet you couldn't even hear traffic, nothing.  And I said, “Abby Kelly Foster, you are coming to life,” and as those words left my mouth it sounded like something hit really hard on that paint can behind me. I had goosebumps, and it being in the middle of the night! My son and husband were asleep upstairs, I felt like running!  And my hairs were raised up and I said, “No, you’re here, with me, aren’t you?” and from that point on I really felt that she was with me.

Especially working at Abby’s House. We have a shelter for homeless women, with or without children and then we have SRO’s [Single Room Occupancies]–58 for women and then 17 bedroom apartments for women with children. We do have a lot of women that come in broken, they come in domestic violence, mental health or anything like that there and there’s a lot of great resources for women here. This is a place where they feel safe. They feel comfortable. Just getting people to believe in them, and with that support we have a lot of women who are back at school. A lot of people are doing volunteering, a lot of people doing self-help groups and stuff like that there. I have to say, the community’s very good as well. We have the education part too, and we’re in partnership with a lot of different agencies to help women grow and feel good about themselves. We have a lot of women volunteers who have been very successful in business, encouraging these women and also giving them the skills they need for the outside world. We have a lady that comes in and does computers with the women. Another one that does resumes; we have a woman that does financial planning with them. All these skills, that before these women never had, give them more confidence in themselves.

I guess I don’t want anyone else to feel as though they aren't worthy and that somebody has their back. So I want everyone—I want all the young girls that you get to work with to realize that they have a lot of value and that someone really cares about what they are doing.

I honestly couldn’t be happier right now. Growing up, I never thought I would be in the Worcester area. I never thought I would be a lawyer. I never thought I’d be working with my father. But I feel like my days are magic. I get to go to work, get paid, feel proud to be a professional, and then make a difference in the community, and work with amazing women while doing it.

There's actually a quote that I love and I never get it quite right, but it’s something along the lines of,  "Life is the constant act of juggling balls. You just have to know which ones are glass." I think that is so beautifully said because my family is always that one I can't drop. But the other ones, sometimes it might be that I don’t get to pay attention to the Republican debate or I don’t get to go listen to this. It doesn’t mean that it’s not important, but it just, it didn’t rise to the top quickly enough.