Look at all the Christmas wreaths and garlands you can make! This was the response from a friend when I sent her a picture of the 60-foot pine tree laying across the truck I bought last year. The truck was crushed.
That fine morning, I was in a place in my emotional life where so much had happened in six months that I stared at this scene as if I was watching it from far above, like God’s perch. While this detachment has served me over a lifetime of karmic meteors, I’ve been feeling the walls cracking on my icy emotional exterior. And not in a good way.
I have approached disasters and trauma with grit and resilience and a fair dose of spiritual perspective, as I try to make sense of luck and life. Yet, I’m having a hard time dealing with my hand of cards.
Playing Poker
Life is not like a box of chocolates; it is a poker game and if you are lucky, and I sincerely mean that, lucky, you are dealt a decent hand, one that perhaps only has one or two life traumas and not a bucketful. The average traumas per person is 3 per lifetime. Some people have less, and sometimes, they rain down like sleet.
When I was editor of a journal, I remember seeing a photo of a woman who had lost all her children to a landmine explosion. Her haunted expression still fills my heart to this day, and I carry her with me as I do the people of all war-torn regions.
On the other extreme, I have known people whose lives are like a Ralph Lauren advertisement. With my nose pressed to the window, I watch and go WOW, in envy, awe and amazement sure that it can not be true, but it is – parties, college football games, cleaning lady problems, can they fit in three vacations…
My Cards, Your Cards and Everyone’s Cards
From my observations, I am amazed how I and my fellow humans play their hands of cards. I have walked paths with the very rich, the destitute and all manner of people in between on many corners of the globe. And, after a recent week of sobbing, I finally had a small epiphany.
Many people who have been blessed with Kings, Queens and Aces, occasionally seem indifferent to suffering, unless it directly affects them or, perhaps, they send a check to a worthy cause. I have also found there are people who can feel the suffering of others, and simply act. Many times, it seems, it comes from people whose cards contain no Kings or Queens.
Angels or Human Beings?
In a remote town in India, an old woman came up to me and just wrapped me in her arms and pulled me to her heart. Once, on a plane, a Polish woman who had been sitting behind me, grabbed my face, patted it with love, and looked me in the eyes. On an island off Jamaica, a beautiful woman came up to me and gave me a necklace with blue stones, my favorite color, and she smiled and walked away.
I have had friends call or text out of the blue when I have had a disaster, despite having told no one.
A doctor, who had been treating me for E. Coli, drove to my remote farm when I was all alone, had no insurance and was very, very sick. Another time, a UPS driver, who had delivered many packages to that remote farm, stopped by to check on me when I got out of the hospital for a heart pneumomediastinum.
When my house caught fire, the first friends to show up brought me an old, but working refrigerator. They were recipients of social services. On the other hand, I had friends tell me about paint colors for their house, their ingrown toenail, or just “that sucks” when seeing the crushed truck. But, there were a few, a very few who said, “What can I do to help?”
This year, one of my favorite people moved to stage three Alzheimer’s. My sister, my only family member, died, a week before I was scheduled to visit her in Italy. A horse, who I only was able to purchase after a horrible car accident and brain injury, got very, very sick and still has not recovered.
My son was hospitalized suddenly after an intense illness, and I spent a month caring for him and sleeping one hour a night. Then the Christmas tree fell on my truck. That day, I needed support, and was looking forward to seeing a group of longtime friends for dinner.
My Emotional Migraine and an Epiphany Aneurysm
Despite the cold, rain and exhaustion, I showered and left the house for dinner because I knew it was good for my self-care. I live the furthest away, so I had been in the car for almost an hour when I got a call from one of my friends asking where I was.
“I’m about a half hour away. We’re meeting at 6, right?”
It seems there had been a side text chat, not one I was a member of, where dinner had been canceled. If one of the group had not called, I would have walked into an empty restaurant after a 90 minute drive, on the day a tree crushed my truck, in a year of one too many Ace of Spades.
I started sobbing so bad, I had to pull over. This slight broke me. I sobbed all night, for everything, every card I had been dealt since I drew breath until I realized something important.
What Can Ya Do?
Be a giver. Be the most humanist of human beings that you can. Invite people who are alone to dinner, or at the very least bring them cupcakes. Visit the neighbor who is in hospice – it does not matter that you don’t know them well. That women in India did not know me.
If you have the time, stop when someone is broken down on the side of the road. Reach out, even if it is only a text, to someone who is going through challenges, and especially a friend. Be aware of others and especially send that text when they are driving 90 minutes to see you. Be the light, especially when it is the dark Winter Solstice in someone’s life.
Despite not wanting to get out of bed lately, I brought dinner to my neighbor, sent flowers to a friend who got out of the hospital, talked to a friend whose heart was heavy, helped another neighbor repair a fence, visited the neighbor in hospice. Why? Because I know pain, and I try, despite my many failings, to be a human being. I went a mile beyond “that sucks” one step beyond, “what can I do to help? and showed up.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
Do you think it is hard to give unconditionally? Can you share a moment when someone gave to you, and it broke your heart – in a good way? How do you deal with the cards that you have been dealt?
