… Show me I’m not alone.
~ Linda, February 14, 2014
This week was a little bit unusual for me. Call it a lesson or a reminder – whatever you call it doesn’t matter. What matters is I needed it… I needed to be reminded what it is like to be on the other side of loss. The side that is looking on; the side that wants to be supportive but isn’t quite sure how.
At the beginning of the week a friend of mine lost her daughter. My heart broke for her as she dealt with all those crazy emotions that make up grief… all the while trying to be “brave” for everyone around her. Why do we try so hard to hide that pain? Why do we feel the need to “protect” the world from something we will all experience at some point in our lives?… I don’t know, but we do.
In an effort to say something, I found myself wanting to say all those cliches that drive me so crazy. I may have even said one or two before I caught myself. How ridiculous is that? After all this time, I know better… but so many of those phrases are so ingrained in us. After all, this is what we’re “supposed” to say, right? And I wanted so badly to lift her pain – to make her feel better.
I found myself trying to convince her to feel better before I started actually listening to myself. Then I shut up because I remembered… I remembered what is was like to lose little baby Matthew and what is was like to lose Bruce. I remembered that all I wanted was someone to let me feel whatever I was feeling with no judgement or words. Someone willing to just be there… Someone to just listen or hold me while I cried.
A few days later I came across a scene on my way to work that shook me to my core. My drive is about an hour on a two lane highway through the marsh. As I came around a bend in the road, I saw several police cars, the County Coroner and a small sedan with the back passenger door open – all parked on the side of the road. There was no apparent crash or people. “Weird,” I thought. Then I saw something laying on the side of the road. Then I saw three of them… bodies (not even covered to protect them from the rain).
I have no idea who these people were or what transpired there. All I know is I started to cry… I cried for the people laying there. I cried for their families. I cried for the policemen and the men working this scene. But mostly I cried for all of us… for this world that can’t seem to figure out how to live in peace with one another.
Then there was today… I spent today with two men – George and Bob. I was working as a volunteer at an event for homeless vets. While this event is intended for our homeless veterans, no one is turned away. It is a one day event in which the homeless from several counties are offered food and clothing. On top of that, our homeless vets are offered such services as health screenings, job placement and benefits counseling.
As our homeless enter the event, a volunteer escort greets them. We spend the day with these men and women. We eat meals with them and help them find the services they need but most important, we are their friend… We talk to them and listen to their stories.
The first year I volunteered, it was a few months after Bruce died. I found myself wanting to do something for someone else… I wanted to forget about my own loss and spend some time focusing on someone else. I went with the intention of helping them… of making a change in their world. But every year, I find that I am the one that is blessed. I always know in my soul that I have gained so much more than I have given.
Today when I met George, he barely talked at first. In fact, the first thing he said to me (that was audible) was “I hate women.” I was a little surprised but not insulted. I just smiled and told him that if he would like we could go back to the front and find a gentleman to walk with him instead. It would be fine – it was no problem. “No,” he said. “I think I might like you okay.” Then he paused for minute and said, “It’s people I don’t trust… I haven’t really talked to anyone in about 10 years… You seem okay though… Maybe I won’t mind talking to you.”
So we sat down to breakfast and I listened. I listened to George tell me his life story. A story of how he had gone from being a Navy man, husband and father of three “beautiful” boys to the man he is now – a man who lives in a tent way back in the woods… alone.
He doesn’t beg for money. (He was very adamant about that.) Instead, he goes early in the morning (before the rest of the world is awake) to find money that people have dropped in the parking lots of bars. He says he can find anywhere from $1 – $10 a day. “People are clumsy after they have been drinking,” he told me. “They reach in their pockets for their keys and never notice when money falls out, too. I can usually find enough to buy some food.”
He was so proud to share pictures of his tent and his friends. His tent is extremely tidy and furnished. (It was like something out of Swiss Family Robinson.) His friends are the racoons and the cats in the area. He has named all of them and described each one and their personality. We talked all morning and on through lunch before he was ready to go back home.
It was then that he insisted on giving me a gift – one of the new items he had received today. I kept trying to explain that I didn’t need it. “I know that,” he said. “But I want to give it to you anyway…” Then, very quietly, “It’s my way of thanking you if that’s okay.”
I feel so blessed this evening as I write this. I know without a doubt that George and Bob were in my life today for a purpose… a purpose they will never know. Isn’t it that way for all of us? We never know whose life we are touching or affecting.
Whether we are the ones dealing with loss and being supported or the ones trying to offer support, it doesn’t matter. What matters is showing each other we are not alone.
It is the relationships and people in our lives that matter and make life worth living. Even if our words or actions come out wrong or clumsy, it is better than doing nothing. As long as we never lose our connections to one another – our relationships with each other – we can learn to lean on each other, support one another and survive our losses.
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