I have two very awesome friends who are not always up to being positive these days.
Who could blame them? You listen to news, you read the articles, you hear the political trash being talked, and you know when you’re being lied to.
So do my friends.
One of them is a nurse, and she has decades of experience to offer, yet she is not a desirable prospect to doctors in private practice or any hospital. She’s been out of work for over a year now, and feels, in her own words, “like a bum.”
That’s guilt talking, the rhetoric and guilt trips layed on anyone taking entitlements or benefits from the government, whether it be unemployment or Social Security and Medicare. Idiots like Rush Limbaugh talk that kind of crap, and it never once worked on me. I know what a guilt trip is. Rush so unabashedly says things, and has for years now, like “You’ve got to pull yourself up by your own boot straps.”
He’s an idiot, all right.
My friend is not a bum. She is, in fact, a victim.
She’s a victim of the Bush Administration’s crash of 2008. The economy went south, you know it, I know it. But not all of us get to see what it’s done to people firsthand. My friend has been so close to being homeless along with her two children that she literally was shutting down in shock and serious bouts of depression. You don’t know what it’s like to have to worry about being homeless in New York City? You’re lucky, but she does have to worry.
Time after time she’s applied for work, and it is a myth that nurses will never be out of work; they’re trained with such valuable skills that they are indispensible. The truth is so far from that, it makes me sick. And it hasn’t stopped young women and men from taking nursing in college, either, and the job market is flooded with educated nurses younger and older.
But in these times, it is the younger ones, the ones with little or no experience, who get the jobs, since they, of course, will collect a considerably smaller paycheck. If an employer can fill a position cheaper with one person than with another, that’s what will go down. They’re even using excuses on my friend like, “Your credit is bad.”
Bad credit, my ass. You ever stayed unemployed a year and still had good credit?
If you said yes, you had help; my friend has none. Of course her credit is shot by now. But what the hell does credit have to do with getting hired?
So while they play with numbers in Washington, you see, there are real people out there, still suffering–it ain’t over yet.
And my friend… is one of them.
On the odd occasion when we speak, I do my best to be a shoulder, an ear, to let her vent, but at the end of the call, that’s all I’ve been. I cannot help her and it’s frustrating. It’s heartbreaking. Because when we lose hope, we’re almost finished. God never seemed so far away, and having faith, and praying for the help you need, for the miracle you need, is too much effort and seems futile anyway.
My other friend is one of the most awesome people I’ve ever known, and I’ve known her long enough to have been aware, even if I wasn’t around to see it, of some of the things she’s gone through since we lost contact a good while back. She honestly went through a hell on Earth, and people gave up on her. Like she needed them anyway.
Point is, she really went close to the bottom, and to be honest, I never even thought I would see her again.
My God did she ever stage a comeback, and it was one worthy of any movie. This is the type of rebound that, in an actual movie, would give you goosebumps and make you cry. She’s got a faith in God that was partly responsible, but the rest was all her, just guts and raw strength of will. I could not be more happy for her, or more proud, but of course, that doesn’t mean everything is perfect, because we all know that’s not in the cards for any of us.
This amazing woman gets so depressed that it shows despite her trying hard not let it be seen. So I’m going to mention here that, as a friend, she was always so fun to be around, and always made me laugh, and that she is a wonderful mother. That part cannot be understated; any woman can be a mother, and almost any woman can be ”Mom.” But she is a Mommy too, and her young son proves it by being absolutely full of life and happiness and wide-eyed wonder at all he sees. I once spent a few glorious minutes with him watching airplanes on approach to the airport, and each one got an excited response as he watched until it vanished behind the tree line. No child who acts like that has “just a mother.” He has a bona-fide mommy. She’s allowed him to live and breathe, and hasn’t snuffed out his innocence nor started him on the path to cynicism, which a lot of parents seem to think is their first duty in child raising.
I wonder today if these two awesome women, my friends, know how much they have contributed to others, one by always being a giver, a worker of light, and a healer as well as a fantastic friend and mother, and one by staging an absolutely stunning comeback on a long journey towards God and the real purpose for her being alive.
I wonder too, if either of them know, if they have any idea, how inspirational they have been to me, and, I’m certain, many others.
My own turning point came after my third suicide attempt failed and landed me in an ER on a respirator. My daughter got a phone call she swears she doesn’t remember, saying that I was on life support and unable to make any decisions.
She may not have remembered, but I did, and I swore she would never get another call like that again. This time a doctor said, “I want you to go to Springfield this time because if you try it again, you will kill yourself.”
So I went. There was a strip search in front of a male nurse before I was allowed to go to my new bed, and the guy was sharp, he knew his business. He looked me in the eyes and said, “I can tell you’re going to make it. I can see it in your eyes; you’re tired of the bullshit.”
And he was right. I was.
But it has not been easy, and at times I’ve suffered torment and pain and thought again about just pitching it all in.
John Wayne once said that “courage is being scared to death to do something but saddling up anyway.”
That’s exactly what my two friends prove to me and, in so doing, inspire me. One day at a time, because any more than that is too much, they keep on going. Our missions in our lives may be different, but we all have the same thing, the thing we all need:
Hope.
Hope that the reason we’re here won’t be forgotten, hope that we will make a difference, hope that life won’t always be so hard, and days may come where we’re even happy. We know we cannot have happiness all the time, but it won’t stop us from looking forward to the times we can.
And we have hope that we will be loved, and that people will value our friendship, and we won’t be alone. Because we know that when all hope is gone, there is no reason to carry on. That’s when we just give up. None of us are ever going to give up again.
What the world needs most?
You got it: Hope. We’re all fine when we have it, and when it fades on us, we get on shaky ground very fast. If we don’t watch it, the World’s problems add to our own and create a burden we can never in a million years shoulder. So the economy is rotten, and we get lied to about it. The wars are killing people every day. Terrorism is a constant threat, illness can come upon us at any time, and some of us live with illness every day, knowing that full recovery may not be possible.
So what? We all need hope that those things can end or be overcome, and once it’s ours, we have to hold it fast and never let it go.
I have a third friend. This one’s a man, a very good man, who tasks me to discuss things he feels strongly about, which is a rare gift. Enemies love to do that, but not in a constructive way. This friend hopes to be a good influence on me, and yet he already was. His own comeback story is also amazing, having enlisted in the Air Force, becoming a captain, and finally falling to a foe worse than people give it credit for: Mental illness. In fact, the same diagnosis as myself. He lost everything, his career, his wife… just like me.
He came back, fighting like hell to live, to once again make a difference in the world. He got married again to a wonderful, amazing woman who steadfastly refuses to let his illness be an excuse to turn away from him or to allow him to turn away from her, because he’s tried that, telling her he knows she suffers with his bouts. Truer love cannot exist. They are a team, partners, and he is making it today, living and contributing his talents and earning a living. Don’t even think that he never thought of giving up and taking the easy way out. Of course he did. So has the first friend I told you about in this post, as I’m sure my other friend must have done also.
Humans are scrappers, and giving up is honestly a last resort, so know that things may be bad, but you will always have another way. Be like my friends, keep what we all need close to you, for without hope, we are impotent against the World.
I pray you’ll take to heart what my friends’ stories show. I hope you will never give it up, and that no matter what is hurting or frightening you, that you don’t forget that we’re all in this together, and perhaps not putting so much effort into fighting, we should learn to love and lean on each other, and when someone makes a dramatic comeback, I hope you’ll remember that anyone can do it, even you.
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