So often it feels like the needs of the world are so vast that what I do does not matter. It can be overwhelming. What can I do about such great suffering?
I don’t think that I can solve it all. I hope and pray that I can do something positive. Why else would I be here?
I live my life with small acts. Or pebbling as I used to call it when I was a partner at an LLC doing professional services around the world. It seemed like my ten acres was full of boulders! How could I tend a garden of boulders? The solution turned out to be busting those boulders into pebbles and moving them around so I could then cultivate the soil. Yes, this is highly abstract. But man did pebbling seem manageable. I could move around pebbles!
This weekend it consisted of mostly taking dogs out. Taking out Liv and Sammy is a true calling. They need to walk and smell around and go potty, especially since they have no yard of their own.
I also attended a short funeral for the son of a friend of Liv. Earlier last week I was walking Liv and she stopped outside a house and looked and waited as she usually does. I told her that she (the friend) was busy and we would ‘say hi’ another time. ‘Next time” as I tell her. As we finally started to move on, the friend came rushing out to give a treat to Liv. Liv gobbled it up.
I asked how she was doing and told her that I was sorry that we had not visited. I know this woman because of walking Liv. Her husband died last year after being sick for a while. She shared that her son had died by suicide at the end of June. We sat down and listened as everything else faded away and seemed unimportant. She told me that there would be a funeral. I told her I would try to come.
The language we use matters. I don’t know all of the reasons, but I am careful to not say that someone committed it or that they chose to die this way. I think we do the best we can, and I am still learning.
It was a small thing to go to this funeral. It was something I could do.
Other small things were some emails and cleaning. I also ran an errand for the local fire department who was doing their yearly BBQ fundraiser. A very small thing!
A final small thing was reaching out to organize a time to check in around a dear friend who needs some support. More on that next time…
Love this!
"died by suicide…"
"The language we use matters…"
Very well done. A jewel in a crown of a piece. 🙏🏼