WHEN LIFE SUCKS

In this world of ours, there are times I wish I had stayed in bed and not gotten out. Yesterday was one of those days.

There is a frail, elderly lady who has been running a certain charity event for my daughter’s agency for many years. It seems that she was very dedicated to doing what she did so well, and no one it seems could do it better than she.

But due to circumstances of which she had nothing to do with, we the agency found it necessary to shut the event down. A lack of volunteers was one of the reasons, and once we voted to end it, we had to personally tell her so. This would have been a task for the president of the board, but once having served as president myself, I knew he would need support. I immediately volunteered to help him deal with this matter and we set up an appointment with the lady in a diner near her hometown.

I picked up Jim our President, and we drove to the diner, along the way bracing ourselves for the ordeal. What was making the ordeal even harder was that the widowed woman had just lost her disabled son a week ago, and now we were taking her one last passion away. It was her way of socializing, meeting new people and giving back to the agency for all it did for her son, as she later told us.

We met promptly at noon in the diner and as she sat she had an inkling as to what was amiss. Opening her remarks about the insensitivity of the timing but was prepared to deal with it. This without us even broaching the subject yet!

Jim started with a brave effort, but I could see that he was finding it just as hard as I was, so I jumped in and together we tried to do it with compassion, sensitivity and also maintain our composure. The poor woman was on the verge of tears as I went on about how we had come to a decision to do the unthinkable.

“You know, if any doctor were to check me out, they would find me healthy, but today my blood pressure would be found to be very high!” As she continued, there was a blank stare on her tired but still beautiful face that penetrated the outer walls of the diner, almost burning a hole in it and in our hearts as well. I tried to sneak a peek at Jim, but he too could feel the pain she was having.

The old frail woman with the strenght of a horse exonerated us and thanked us for at least giving her a courtesy of meeting with her in person. But in the end when we were all said and done, she was angry, resentful and very disappointed. It felt as she was leaving as I had just tossed aside a used Kleenex, heartlessly and without care, yet I know in my heart as does Jim, that it had to be done.

When it comes time for me to meet my maker, he may bring up that moment in time, but he may not fault me too much, because I didn’t want to hurt this lovely old woman anymore than she wanted to be hurt.

God forgive me.