SMALL GOOD THINGS

     People forgot to tell us growing up how hard being human was going to be. They implied that there was a system: Hard work, along with good deeds and manners would almost certainly protect you and your family from the sniper. We banked on this. I speak for a lot of us when I say we want a refund.

     It turns out there was no system, at least not one that held up consistently, because life is life. They also forgot to mention this one tiny detail. There you are, doing your best and being a good guy, but then life decides to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or gets sand in a very special place, and wham.

     Someone is targeted with a grim diagnosis, possibly even a  beautiful young person, when there are so, so many more available candidates from whom to choose, people who are destroying all that is good. (Don’t tell God I said this.) Of course, on other days, life gets a good night’s sleep, or a massage, and people you love get a break, where the news they were waiting for could have been awful. Instead, it was just a benign cyst, or the fan belt.

     I repeat: Life is life. Who knew?

     A couple of months ago, a cherished cousin who lives alone got the news that he was facing a pretty awful future. So my husband and I did what most regular old humans would do. We said, “Hey; come live with us. We have room. And I guess you can bring the dog,”

     People have done many things like this for me over the vast decades. This is part of our human makeup, our capacity for redeeming love. This rarely looks like carpets of kaleidoscopic poppies blooming alongside green meadows, although this would work for me. I like systems and order, but no, it looks like motley old us. This generosity is our superpower. (My husband says our superpower is our adaptability. Maybe it is the combo platter.)

     Now we have a sick and suddenly-old man—my age—with mild dementia in our living room, every day, watching the National Geographic channel or baseball. We adore Gordy, and his dog is much better behaved than ours, which doesn’t mean much, so it is both easily doable, and hard.

    A blessing of old age is that you have figured out that it is a privilege to serve, to help others, and that it will probably help you at least as much as it does the other person. All truth is paradox, which again does not entirely work for nervous cases like me.

      On the toughest day of this year so far, last Thursday, I got an urgent, early morning call from Gordy’s doctor, and shortly afterwards we found ourselves lost in the bustling hospital complex where he is being treated. I was carrying a large bottle of the sickening syrup Gordy has to swallow four times a day, which I couldn’t open. A security guard asked if we needed help. “Oh boy, do we,” I said. He locked arms with Gordy, and walked him slowly down two halls to the right elevator.

    Before we got in, I handed him the big brown bottle and explained that I couldn’t get it open. “Maybe I’m not that smart, but I’m very strong,” he assured me, and we laughed for the first time that day He twisted the cap off. People made room for us, and the guard Godblessed us when he got off on the floor before ours. In that cramped elevator, the whole day opened.

     My husband taught a weeklong retreat in Costa Rica last summer, and I went along as arm candy. There was a woman there, also named Annie, 40 years old, fabulous, beautiful and super smart, who was near the end of her life. On the last night of the retreat, my husband and I hosted a dance party, with an exhilarating mix of mostly classic rock that my husband had put together. I asked Annie to dance and we did, and then I tried to pull her remarkable mother Lucy into our orbit. Lucy protested, “Ain’t gonna happen, only song I’ll dance to is ‘Love Shack’,” And then, three songs later, that old B-52’s song came on.

       I stepped aside. She and Annie danced together shyly at first, the tribal two step, but by the end the Octopus Hop, those eight arms and legs flying.

     I captured it all on film for them. Did this make up for much when Annie passed two months later? I can’t answer that for you.

      The same rules apply whether you are trying to help a sick friend or our country or the earth. As above, so below. You show up. You take the next right action and the insight follows, not vice versa. The insight is that caring and giving are what fill us up. The insight is that the greatest blessing is to be able to be a blessing for others. The insight is the title of that beautiful Raymond Carver story, “A Small Good Thing.” Help a little. Suck it up and let others help you. Be blessed.