Published in the Fredericton Daily Gleaner, Monday, October 31, 2011
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I don’t save a lot of things, but I do save some things. After moving to and from four different provinces, I know how to purge. But there have been more than a few memorable items that have survived the yard sales and the spring-cleanings.
In a little gift bag in my craft room, I have every letter my grandmother ever wrote me. She’s deaf and has been for quite some time, so letters are how we’ve communicated over the years. I’ve saved newspaper clippings of my kids when they’ve appeared in the paper, I’ve saved the little notecard that was included with the first roses Stephen ever gave me, and I have a lock of each of my children’s hair.
In 2007 I saved a copy of an obituary I read online.
I’ve turned into my grandmother. While I don’t hold a physical paper most days, the first thing I read, on most occasions, are the obituaries.
This particular one caught my eye not because it was from someone well-known, but because it was long. I gravitate to long ones – hoping to glean snippets of wisdom in reading how someone lived their life – a life that many would now mourn.
This particular obituary was the beautiful story of a woman who spent her time, by everything mentioned, about as well as one should. Her story outlined the journey of a woman I never knew when she was alive, but think of in death. I have no idea who she is, or who her family is, or what she looked like, but I want to follow her example.
Her name was Karen Louise Weir (nee Brown). When she died in Halifax in February of 2007 she was just 60 years old. I remember thinking she was only two years younger than my Dad when he passed away in 2000. The paper read that she died “with her family holding her hands after an extended battle with brain cancer during which she amazed us all with her dignity and strength.”
In her short biography, there are sections I revisit every so often. Sometimes I’m looking for a bit of inspiration, other days a bit of hope. I always come away with the important reminder to be genuinely nice to people and to always remember that you can make a difference with just a smile or a gesture, or the smallest acts of kindness. There is the usual listing of workplaces and volunteer commitments, personal passions and those she leaves behind, but there is also this:
“Karen saw her children through rose-coloured glasses and her children never doubted that they had her unconditional love and support through all that life could throw at them … Karen assumed good in everyone, once even offering food to a man who broke into her home because she believed no one would do such a thing unless he was desperately hungry … In her memory take a few moments from your everyday life to do something especially kind for someone … Bring them flowers; make a cup of tea, have a chat, or say something kind that you’ve always meant to say. Don’t wait until something tragic happens, as it is so easy to do. Karen would really like that …”
In the words of my Aunt Joan, Karen was a light in a sea of darkness. I try to remember to be the light instead of the darkness – not just with family, but with everyone else in my life as well. This is where life can get a little messy.
Sometimes caring for so many means you put yourself out. Sometimes things get a little messy and complicated. Phone calls at awkward times, emails explaining life situations you’d rather not hear about, or the sleeplessness associated with caring about someone you know is in a horrible situation and you can’t help them because they don’t want to help themselves.
I don’t deal with the drama but rather with the facts. I’ve raised a teenager, so I find it easier to wade through the half-truths and the attention-seeking actions to find the real problem and help come up with solutions. Young people who need rides to the food bank, someone who needs help with his taxes, another who needs you to help her navigate a string of student-loan roadblocks. There are friends who need to know what to do in an emergency they’ve never encountered before, or another who just needs a hand to hold at the hospital.
There have been times when I’ve befriended and helped people, either through my work or through my volunteer commitments, and at the end of the day all I wanted to do was just take them home and mother them.
I used to wish I could turn this aspect of my personality off, but now understand I can’t control it, nor do I believe I have to. I know my limits, and have been successful at keeping to them. But just because my help has stopped doesn’t mean the caring has.
When my husband and I were following a marriage-counselling book a few months back, one of the exercises involved sharing our thoughts about each other – in particular the most endearing quality we found in our spouse.
His was easy. I love how he can always calm the kids (and his wife!) in any type of situation. He is our ballast – our steady guy in choppy waters. He never gets flustered and can keep his head about him in all situations. I think that’s part of what makes him a great firefighter.
I really had no idea what he’d say to the question. He took some time thinking before he answered. I was sure it would have something to do with trying to make family members feel special, like the little surprises I sometimes plan for the kids – a special outing, a special craft, or the sticky notes I put in lunches. Or maybe he’d say it was the way I crawl into bed with the kids each morning as I try to gently wake them and sneak a cuddle before they get up for the day.
What he said surprised me.
He admitted that the most endearing quality he felt I possessed is how I care for others. He said that I care for everyone, something he has a harder time with. He marvelled at how much empathy my heart carried.
The one thing in my personality that I felt he viewed as a flaw was what made me lovable.
Wow.
We have to willing to stick our necks out. Life is so busy and so hard and so messy for most of us that it’s easy to cocoon ourselves in our own little worlds and just deal with our own day-to-day problems. But when we reach out to others, offer a helping hand, hope and sometimes guidance, we are making the world a better place.
I sleep well at night knowing I spent my day caring – even if all I did was smile at someone and tell that person I was glad to see them today.
Sure, life gets busy and complicated because I care, but my life is made so much richer because of it. My children are being taught that you get far more back when you give, and that our lives are made richer by the compassionate connections we make through caring for others.
Like others, I was taught the golden rule: Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.
Some people take that to mean we need to provide people with the help that we want or need or feel they could use. I try and follow the platinum rule instead: Treat others in the way they like to be treated. Sometimes following the platinum rule is hard – it puts us out of our comfort zone, it challenges us, and it makes us think. Anything worth working for – improving another person’s self-esteem, helping an individual succeed, providing someone with a compassionate ear, or a hand to hold – is never easy, but it does give back.
These encounters broaden our minds, renew our faith in humanity, and allow us to expand our hearts, our understanding and our community connections. It also allows us to follow in the footsteps of Karen Weir and honour the final request of someone who made the world a better place.
Theresa Blackburn is a wife, mother and New Brunswick Community College instructor who lives and writes in Woodstock. You can email her at theresa@mybigfatlife.ca, or join her group, Big Fat Life, on Facebook. You can also follow her on Twitter @MY_BIG_FAT_LIFE
