Two of my best friends and I got together for dinner, shopping, and girl time on a recent Friday night, like we’ve done a million times before. These infrequent but essential outings allow us to catch up and sometimes blow off steam since we’ve created a safe space to vent.
We raised our families together, but over the past two springs, the final two kids graduated from high school. In the past, we discussed pregnancy woes, potty training, and survival tips for parents of teens. Now we talk about parenting our adult children, traveling without them, and goals for our empty nest years (one of us is already there; for two of us, it’s on the horizon).
We began our evening on a lawn filled with folks who’d come for an outdoor concert from a ’70s and ’80s cover band, then we wandered into a clothing store so one of us could pick out a dress for an upcoming event. Over dinner, our conversations went deep, in that way unique to friendships with the firmest foundations. Eventually, we returned to a bench on the lawn with cake, ice cream, and clear plastic cups of Prosecco.
Two of us paid extra attention to the third that night. After the tragic death of her husband this spring, we listened when she needed to talk and offered advice when she needed to think things through. We planned a fun weekend trip during her birthday month this fall. We laughed and dried our tears, sometimes simultaneously.
In a moment of clarity, I recognized these friends will likely carry me through the same or something similar someday.
Hard things await us all. Expecting them doesn’t always make it easier. Often, we’re blindsided. My friends talked me through a panicked call from one of my children as we sat on the lawn that night and I’m thankful they were there.
I read a lot of craft articles about writing, but when I came across one recently on how to write characters’ traumatic experiences when you’ve experienced none yourself, I skipped it. Unfortunately, I can’t relate to a trauma-free life. Fortunately, however, I can use what I’ve learned to become a better—and more compassionate—writer, friend, and human being.
Someone half my age told me that the older she gets, the less patience she has with other people, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. The more times life punches me in the gut or brings me to my knees, the more sympathy I have for the human condition.
Do I always understand what the people around me are going through? No, and neither do you. The distracted driver in front of you may be reeling from a phone call from her husband or her doctor or her child that just upended her life.
The older woman staring into space and blocking the bananas in the grocery store might be a dear lady from my church whose husband just passed away in their sixtieth year of marriage. I’m sure she hasn’t shopped alone in decades.
The friend who says she’s fine when her face tells a different story may need a quiet moment with you, a gentle question, and a listening ear.
Your cranky teen might be dealing with more than hormones.
Can you remember a time you maintained a normal facade while falling apart on the inside? I can.
We’re instructed to “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 NKJV). When we choose kindness as our first response instead of our last, we make the world a more gracious place and provide the people around us with a soft place to land.
I love every word of this. Thank you for saying it! Yes and amen!! I wish more adults understood how important it is to just be present. Show up! You don’t need to have all the answers. A friendly, sympathetic face will do.
Angela, thank you for being here. I love every word you said, too.
Dawn,
I shared your devotion x 2!
I always love to read your devotions. The older I get the more I realize how fragile life is and how we have much more in common than we do different.
Sending you summer joy,
Lisa Wilt
Lisa, thank you for sharing! You are so right: life is fragile, and we have more in common than our differences.
Beautiful words on friends listening and being there for one another. When a friend is going through something hard, I always ask myself what I would need to hear if the situation was reversed. It’s always just a listening ear and empathy.
Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes isn’t always our first instinct, but it would be a kinder world if it were.
Dear Dawn…….I loved your story today. I am a 77 year old woman with a 55 year marriage that has broken up due to my husband’s violent kind of Dementia and he abused me for 3+ years to try to get him out of the denial he was in. No avail with this, and then my one son called me and told me I was lying about his father. It was just old age. He said he no longer considered me his mother and I could never, ever speak or see my 1 grandson (12 years old at the time) again and he hung up. A heartbreaking so severe that I just collapsed in tears and threw up. He did eventually after I had to have my husband evicted from the house, that I was not lying and his father is very sick. He never came back to me though and my grandson is soon to be 14 and still no contact. I always put on a happy face around other people while my heart was crying. Your story touched me as even as a child, my mother told me I was very generous and cared about many people. After college, I still was not sure what I wanted to do, but my Holy Spirit and Jesus whispered to me to start at the bottom. Please remember we are talking about the late 60’s and early 70’s. I followed their path and I got a job cleaning other women’s houses. Each job I had after that taught me a lot as long as you pay attention and remember situations that happened that you had to try and solve. Finally I got to a job as a receptionist for a trucking company that employed 300 drivers. The first call I had to take as they had just moved me to the Payroll Dept. was an angry driver really cursing at me. I was 24 years old and really did not know how to manage it so I put him on hold for a minute to think. When I got back on the phone I threw the same language, a lot of F words which I don’t use, but I said if you don’t change your attitude, I am NOT going to help you. Pause, but he came back and stopped the foul language. I said thank you and asked him what was wrong. I told him I would do everything I could to find out what went wrong and said if it was our mistake, I will authorize with dispatch an emergency advance an correct the mistake and he would get that money next week. I was there for 10 years and really it may sound crazy, but I learned so much about people and how to handle certain personalities. What Jesus and my Holy Spirit had told me all those years ago worked to my benefit. The trucking company unfortunately closed so off I went looking for another job. This time through something that God did, I was called to interview for a position that I considered my “Dream Job”. I had been working elsewhere for 6 months, but it was not for me. I interviewed twice for I hoped would be my job and finally got the call that they would like to offer me the position. Happiness just enveloped me. I worked there for 35 years as a C/S Manager. Most of the employees there were much younger than me, but step by step they learned that I would answer their questions whether it was work related or personal and I never got angry at anyone as all my experience previously taught me that generosity and caring was the way to go. These people really saw that I was a good person and if they wanted to talk off the floor, I told them I would schedule a conference room and let them know when I could find a time. It got to the point that some of the older girls even discussed their physical problems or parental concerns. I am retired now, but because of the way I acted and was for those 35 years, 25 people that had reported to me wrote letters themselves and I ended up winning the highest award that an employee at this company could win. It was called “The CARE Award”. I was shocked and stunned the day it was announced and I did cry. There was a huge situation that they prepared for this award which I won’t go into as I have already rambled on too much. I pray that I did not bore you too much. The main point that goes back to your story Dawn, is that sometimes don’t go the way you want, but that is God’s plan for us and it did turn into being something even better than what I thought could be when I was 24 years old. I live in a facility now as I had to sell our house of 40 years. People were very skeptical about me for a long time because of the way I dress and my jewelry, blond hair (bleached) and the way I carry myself, but day by day I have done things and talked to people that are in their 80’s, 90’s and even up to 103 years old. The word has gotten around that they had been wrong about me and I have many people that come to me for various reasons. As God says “I am what I am”. I still am heartbroken about my husband, son and grandson but I have cast those concerns to Jesus’s feet and I just need to be patient until I get a sign. Thank you Dawn for this story. I only had 1 child so I can’t imagine what it would be like to have more. Having 1 was difficult enough trying to balance job, house, child care by me and so many other things. I send my love to you and if you will, please say a prayer for me. Thank you again…..Betsy Basile
Thank you for your comment, Betsy. I love what you said: “all my experience previously taught me that generosity and caring was the way to go.” So true! We need more of that.
BEAUTIFUL, Dawn! Everyone needs to know the feeling of having a soft place to land! And I pray that God will use me to be that soft place for others, along the way!
I hope so too, Kathy!
(while teens are usually dealing with more than hormones, yes, *also* hormonal swings can be extremely disorienting and require a whole new set of tools to identify and wrangle into their correct place in the hierarchy of what is running you… says someone who is not looking forward to perimenopause/menopause…)
(and *YES* to more patience because of a realization that the surface of anyone else isn’t all that’s going on. I do still get impatient with people who are continually amplifying petty drama, even though that too is probably because of something or other – but it seems like more of a choice of approach? But maybe it isn’t.)
Yes, KC, hormones on their own are a lot! Look at what they do to us during pregnancy (and, as you mentioned, menopause). We need to lead with kindness.
I thought this was a wonderfully written piece. I am not religious but I often visit this site because of the writers, and it was refreshing for me to read a piece that got to the heart of what she was saying, telling a full cohesive story, BEFORE she invoked scripture, at the end.
Dawn,
I’ve been through my share of trials with aging parents & their dementia issues. I am very empathetic towards my patients & their families. Do my best to encourage them & offer support & help any way I can. Once you’ve experienced something it is easier to encourage others. You are blessed to have a group of friends who can be there for each other.
Blessings 🙂