“You never know what’s going to happen when you wake up in the morning. Do you?” Suzie said over dinner last night.
“No,” I laughed, though it wasn’t funny. Sometimes a laugh seems like the only response when life gets ridiculous. I took her hand over the table at Red Robin and prayed for more than our food.
Simple math says some mornings good things happen – but not lately. Bad things seem to come in bunches.
The last two weeks people we love have faced a litany of evils, disappointment, difficult decisions, loss, money issues, relocation, pet distress, separation and fatigue. I’d give you details but none of it happened to us. Privacy is a big deal when things are coming apart at the seams. Who wants to do it with an audience?
Of course, there was no warning. But really, who would want warning? That would just ruin the good days with the upcoming bad.
In spite of all of our experience, we never really remember the drain of emotions that takes place. Feeling so much stress and grief is exhausting. And this time we are just bystanders.
But when people you love have a crisis, Suzie tells me you can’t whine. Sometimes it’s tough living with a woman who survived eight different cancers. I really enjoy a good whine.
Be that as it may, the question of this website, and of our lives at the moment, is what can you do?
We’ve already discussed Being There but there’s a LOT more. We’ve had a lot of practice concerning what to do in a crisis.
In fact, we’ve discovered a system that we use. You use it too. It’s built into all of us. It’s how humans have survived since there were humans. I call it the encouragement system and I’m writing a book about it. I’ll be sharing a lot of it for free right here.
But first, I have a few bills to pay, fires to put out and a carpet to clean. Problems mean company and company means cleaning. It’s just the way it is. Sigh . . .
Sweetie, are you sure I can’t whine?
