A friend of mine is struggling. Life is beating him up, not through any fault of his, but because life just does that, targets individuals at random. He is one of those fine people, with a gentle spirit, a big heart, is a wonderful son, husband and father. You’d think all those things would guarantee him a toll-free ride. Not so. We all know people like my friend, someone we admire and whose aches make us ache, whose wounds make us bleed. Some of you are people like my friend and … that got me thinking.
Sometimes anxiety gets the worst of me, but at my ripe old age, I can feel it coming, like a train whistle blows in my brain and the earth beneath my feet rumbles and speaks to me. The clue is I notice I am rushing, hurrying through tasks for no reason. No one is timing me, I’m not going to set the world record for how fast I brush my teeth or make my bed, the deadlines are imaginary, but still I rush. I start to drop things and then my brain shouts at me. “Ding, ding, ding,” it says, and I listen now. I didn’t always listen; I seldom noticed I was rushing, because the rushing seemed essential in my attempt to outrun something evil that was chasing me, but a person can’t run forever.
So, after I’ve dropped my pen or keys forty-three times, I stop everything and breathe deeply. I walk slowly across the room, my chin on my chest, my arms hanging weightless at my sides. It works and I can reset the gas pedal to a gentler pace and the anxiety eventually vanishes. That adjustment is relatively simple and immediate during the day, but at night it becomes a challenge. What I do at night is I think of someone I know who is struggling, who is being beat up by life and has lost sight of the fine person they are, who can’t remember the qualities that make them precious and valuable. I lie there and think of how far they have come, the hurdles they have already crossed that don’t seem to measure up in their own assessment of how they are doing. I nod, literally, and place my hand on my chest in acknowledgement of their strength and resilience and I send those thoughts out into the universe and hope they land somewhere that will help.
I believe those thoughts help, that our collective support for those who need us finds its way to fate or destiny or whatever we might call it. It feels a bit like prayer. I am not a religious person, but I have faith in what I cannot see. The gesture of thinking of someone who might need me calms my anxiety every single time so I know those thoughts have power, have meaning, and how could that ever be a useless undertaking, how could that not help someone we care about.
The Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend falls on October 12th this year. It fell on October 12th in 1974, 50 years ago, the day my dad left his green chair in the living room vacant, the day he crumbled at our feet, his heart stopping immediately and without remedy. In my youthful self-absorbed thought-process, it felt like he left only me, but he left us all, all those who loved and admired him, respected and were inspired by him. He was not a religious man, but he understood faith that I would guess most who had gone to war would hold firm to. I can feel him even now encouraging me to do my best, though my best falls short on many days. I can feel him urging me to believe in myself and to believe in those in whom I place my well-earned trust. I can feel him at night, as though he might be the vessel to take my thoughts and deliver them to where they need to go, to those who are struggling. And I can feel his nod that he understands that love is never severed by death. We put it in a safe place, in a pocket we can touch to assure us it is still there when we need it, like a lantern to light our path, like a map to help our choices. I wish you all a thankful day at Thanksgiving and every day.
wendistewart@live.ca
