People there just when you need them
I called in my anti anxiety pill prescription today – these are my when I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get the thought wheel to stop pills – I take half and go back to nighty night and thoughtless sleep. The woman at the drugstore said someone here says she’ll bring them to you. “Uh, okay,” I said. A half hour later a friend pulled up and handed me my pills. Nice huh?
Later, I ran into a friend who is getting out of a 10 year relationship and she looked radiant. She said, “I’m tired of being happy for the both of us.” Hmm, I thought to myself. Hmmm hmmm hmmm. I was on my way into Swirl because I was itchy at home with the house down for their nap and I didn’t know what was eating away at me, but just as I was entering, I had a memory of my mother and I moved over to the side of the building to just work through the shock of tears when another friend saw me and came over to see if I was all right.
I decided instead to go into the Fairgrounds and sat down with a cup of cocoa and just decided to stare at the exhibit (Your Mom and Dem) that another friend had just hung and was about to enter outer space so I could deal with my grief when another friend called worried about me. She came over to sit with me while I cried and put her arm around me.
The first friend said that she had left the house and was in a melancholy mood but had kept running into people she wanted to see who made her smile and she felt like it was a gift from the cosmos – people there when you need them. I finally got back in my truck and came home, having worked through about five people – one of whom gave me a shoulder, one of whom gave me their ear, one of whom said I had cheered her up, and one who told me he loved me, and another who made me laugh at the “persona” she had created on Facebook.
People there just when you need them. I ain’t lying.
December 24th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
That’s true. Even if they aren’t always right there, they will be if you let yourself open up to them. That’s what I’ve found. I lost the very first significant person in my life (my father, when I was not quite 30) at Eastertime. By Christmas I thought I was doing fine, but then we were driving somewhere in Vermont and a song came on the radio that just started a river flowing–lots of nose blowing, blubbering, and wishing I could change things.
Just last night Hubby delivered a bag of homemade Christmas goodies to our surrounding neighbors, including one who lost her 38 year old son Thanksgiving day. They were gathered across the street for dinner–the family–and almost ready to serve when the son decided he needed a walk in the mountainous terrain behind our house. He never came back. Was found a few days later in a ravine near the bottom, apparently having slipped on ice and snow (it was bad then). We feel so bad for her and weren’t sure how to handle the annual greetings but decided to go ahead. So glad we did, especially after reading this. She’s such a lovely lady and we feel so blessed that so far our whole family endures. It does get easier, but the hole in your heart never heals up.
December 24th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
It is the song – what was playing on Swirl’s radio was Eartha Kitt’s Santa Baby – which reminds me of my mom, not for any other reason then she had a little of Eartha in her. But today I asked Tin’s nanny how she was doing this time of year having lost her mother three years ago, and she said last year was especially hard when she walked into a restaurant and heard her mother’s song on the stereo.
My dad was the first significant person I lost and that was when I was 30 as well. (I did lose a good friend in high school who died in a car accident with her soon to be husband.)