Lady Pamela
The woman who showed me how to carry myself before I knew how.
Pamela of Grace
A tribute to the woman who showed me how to carry myself before I knew how.
I was twenty years old when I met Pamela Geiger.
I was also a new mother.
I had put myself through school while I was pregnant, studying medical billing and reception, and somehow I had made it to the part where I was supposed to walk into an actual office and know what I was doing.
Except I didn't.
Not really.
I had worked before. Restaurants. The kinds of jobs you take when you're young and figuring things out.
But this felt different.
This was an office.
A professional environment.
There were expectations I didn't completely understand yet, rules no one had written down for me, and women around me who seemed to already know how everything worked.
And there I was.
Twenty years old.
A new mom.
Trying very hard not to look as unsure as I felt.
Walking Into a World I Didn't Know Yet
My externship was at a medical billing company in California.
Eventually, they hired me.
At the time, I don't think I completely understood what a big step that was.
I was entering a world I'd never really been taught how to navigate.
How do you speak in a professional setting?
How do you handle uncomfortable situations?
How do you dress for an office without feeling like you're wearing someone else's clothes?
How do you carry yourself when you're the youngest person in the room?
How do you make people take you seriously when you're still learning how to take yourself seriously?
Those things sound simple once you've been doing them for years.
At twenty, they weren't.
And being so much younger than most of the women around me made me very aware that I was different.
Sometimes I could feel that difference in the way I was spoken to.
I don't think every person meant anything by it.
But when you're young and new and already wondering whether you belong somewhere, you notice the people who make you feel small.
And you notice the person who doesn't.
Pamela never did.
The Woman Who Treated Me Like I Belonged
Pamela was the supervisor of the billing department.
She didn't treat me like the inexperienced twenty-year-old who had wandered into a grown-up office.
She treated me like someone worth teaching.
Someone capable of learning.
Someone who belonged there.
There is a difference.
And I felt it.
She was patient with me without being condescending.
Professional without being cold.
Confident without ever needing to make anyone else feel less important.
I watched the way she spoke to people.
I watched the way people responded to her.
I watched how she handled situations that I wouldn't have known how to handle.
And I watched the way she walked into work every day.
She always looked put together.
Professional.
Intentional.
Nobody sat me down and gave me a lesson called How to Be a Professional Woman.
Pamela didn't have to.
I learned by watching her.
Sometimes Women Teach Us Without Knowing They're Teaching Us
There are things women pass to one another that aren't written in employee handbooks.
How to enter a room.
How to speak when something matters.
How to stay composed.
How to dress in a way that tells the world you're taking yourself seriously.
How to be kind without disappearing.
How to expect respect without demanding attention.
Pamela showed me those things simply by being herself.
I don't know if she ever realized how closely I was watching.
Probably not.
That's one of the beautiful things about influence.
Sometimes the moments that change someone else's life look completely ordinary to us.
Maybe Pamela thought she was simply going to work.
Doing her job.
Supervising a department.
Helping a young employee learn.
Meanwhile, I was absorbing everything.
She Never Made Me Feel Like "Just the Young Girl"
Looking back, I think this is the part that means even more to me now.
I was surrounded mostly by women who were older and more experienced than I was.
And when you're twenty, the difference between twenty and thirty-five or forty can feel enormous.
Some people saw my age first.
Pamela seemed to see me first.
She never made me feel foolish for what I didn't know.
She never made me feel that being young meant I couldn't become capable.
She simply gave me room to learn.
That kind of respect can change a young woman.
Especially one who isn't completely sure of herself yet.
There are people who teach us by correcting us.
And then there are people who teach us by showing us what is possible.
Pamela was the second kind.
The Letter I Still Have
Eventually, I decided to leave California and move back to Hawaii.
Before I left, Pamela wrote me a letter of recommendation.
I've carried it with me ever since.
All these years.
Through moves.
Jobs.
Different versions of my life.
I still have it.
And every once in a while, I read it.
I'm always struck by the way she described me.
My work ethic.
My abilities.
The kind of employee I had become.
It is probably one of the most professional letters of recommendation I've ever read.
But that isn't really why I've kept it.
I've kept it because of what it represents.
At twenty years old, when I was still trying to figure out who I was and whether I was doing any of this correctly, someone I respected looked at me and saw capability.
She saw potential.
Maybe even before I fully saw it myself.
There is something powerful about being seen that way.
We Carry Certain Women With Us
Pamela was in my everyday life for only a relatively short period.
And yet I have carried pieces of what she taught me into nearly every professional environment I've entered since.
Job interviews.
Meetings.
Difficult conversations.
The way I present myself.
The way I speak to someone who's younger or less experienced.
The way I try to make people feel when they are learning.
I still think about her.
Because eventually you realize that some of the people who shape you aren't necessarily the people who stay.
Sometimes they simply appear at the exact moment you need an example.
They show you something.
And then you carry it forward.
Her Light Was in the Way She Made Room
When I think about Pamela now, I don't remember one grand speech.
There wasn't a single dramatic moment when she sat me down and told me how to become a confident, professional woman.
Her influence was quieter than that.
It was in her patience.
Her standards.
Her grace.
Her composure.
The way she treated people.
And the fact that she made space for a twenty-year-old young mother who was still figuring everything out.
She didn't have to dim herself to make me feel capable.
She simply let me stand close enough to her light to learn from it.
And I did.
Lady Pamela
I don't know whether Pamela ever knew how much she taught me.
I don't know whether she would remember every little moment that I still remember.
But that's exactly why I wanted to tell this story.
Because we don't always know when we're becoming part of somebody else's life story.
The way we treat someone who is new.
The patience we show someone who doesn't know what we know yet.
The encouragement we offer.
The respect we give before someone has learned how to demand it for herself.
Those things stay.
Pamela showed me what professionalism looked like.
But more than that, she showed me what it looked like to be a woman who could be respected without making someone else feel small.
And somewhere inside the twenty-year-old version of me, something changed because of it.
I learned a little more about how I wanted to carry myself.
And maybe even more importantly,
how I wanted to treat the women coming behind me.
That is the light she gave me.
And all these years later, I'm still carrying it.
Until next time,
Kelly 🤍
LifeWithCates
Continue Reading
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The story behind this series and why I believe the women who shape us deserve to be remembered.
Giving Yourself Permission to Begin Again
For the seasons when you are stepping into something new before you feel completely ready.
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