Four days ago for the first time in my adult life, I felt like giving up. While we all have those fleeting thoughts from time to time, I knew something was different when I could not shake the feeling after two days. The culmination of many stressors had taken its toll in dramatic fashion. At work, after two very grueling months of trying to reach a fund raising goal, I had fallen short by nearly $150,000. A perfect record of twenty one years of goal achievement was shattered. At home, childrens' schedules and demand for my time (or at least my ability to drive them places) was heating up. On Friday, May 13th, my marriage, which I had treasured for many years ceased to exist. Then, before I could catch my breath, as I arrived to pick up Abby after a long Saturday at work, my friend Mary Ann pulled me aside. "You should know," she said, "that Gary called Abby today to tell her he is engaged." Although it was an outcome I had predicted for almost four years, the words nearly knocked me off my feet. The judge's ink had hardly dried on our divorce decree and he was getting married. Sunday I took to my bed thinking I might never rise again.
For two days I functioned on auto pilot. In a pervasive numbness, I drove the children to school, went to work, attended to their needs after work and tried not to think of anything. While the world is full of suffering much larger than mine I wondered what I had done to deserve all of this at once. I went to bed feeling tired and defeated.
Just a few hours later I awoke feeling rested and refreshed with an overwhelming feeling that things would be o.k. Nothing had changed but in that tiny window of sleep two comforting memories had filled my thoughts. The first took me back nearly ten years. That spring day I had been too tired from my chemo treatments to put on my wig. Standing in the door of Dan's classroom another mother noticed that I was undergoing cancer treatments. She said nothing but a few days later the phone rang. The school community had been made aware of my illness and was wondering if they could support us by providing dinner for us each school day. These meals continued each day, without a hitch for the next six months. For our struggling family, this was really love in action. I have forgotten many things in the last ten years, but never the face and name of the woman who saw this need and filled it.
The second memory is much more recent. As the weather grew warm, I began to turn on my car's air conditioning. For more than three years, each spring I would hold my breath wondering if the system would work. The problem seemed intermittent yet without fail the system would stop on the hottest days of summer or when I was going somewhere of importance. I had asked Gary to look at it several times and he had made several excuses - "I'm not a mechanic he would say," "I'm just not good at that stuff." In hindsight I realized that I hadn't wanted a mechanic - just someone concerned enough to help me figure out the problem.
Determined to get it fixed once and for all, I ask one of my smartest friends if he thought I should take it to our local mechanic. Without asking he leapt into action researching the problem, buying the parts, fixing the car and saving me from a huge and unaffordable repair bill. I was blown away by this amazing gesture of kindness.
As a society we are obsessed with words. Will the boss tell me I'm doing a good job? When will my boyfriend say "I love you" ? In my life I can't recall when any boyfriend of mine told me for the first time that they loved me but I will always remember six months of meals and a repaired air conditioning system. In my struggle I had forgotten to see that the love I needed did not need to be verbalized to comfort me; it was all around me in the caring deeds of my friends and family and would see me through this hard time. The lesson has finally stuck.
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