It never ceases to amaze me when people are kind. In today’s world people are always ready to bitch about something. Everyone wants everything yesterday and impatience, instant gratification, and pleasure are immediate needs of most people. It seemed to me that the days of the “Golden Rule” had gone by the wayside. The Golden Rule being “Do unto others as you’d have others do unto you” (For those of you who might be confused). Of course my views on people have changed a bit. Not dramatically, but I have been able to witness the selfless and kind nature of others first hand. Sometimes it comes from places we least expect it.
I live in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The state capital is a nice place to live. It has its desirable features while lacking in some areas. Like most places I am sure people who are from here wonder why in the hell people leave where they are from to move here. I arrived here via New York, then Vermont. After I left my hometown of Pittsburgh and was far away from PA for almost four years, I wanted to come back. Be closer to home, without actually being back home. Harrisburg at the time was a great option. It was close enough to visit family and old friends but not so close that anyone could show up on our doorstep unexpectedly. The only thing that was difficult was that we were alone. No one was in an immediate proximity should an emergency arise.
After living here a few years I left the company I was working for and branched out on my own. Being in business for myself granted me to opportunity and freedom to do things on an unconfined schedule. I could go to luncheons, chamber mixers, and professional group meetings regularly to get out and meet new people. These opportunities brought people into my life that would provide me a kind of support I never thought I’d know; women and men who had not only become colleagues or clients, but friends and comrades.
I am not close to my family (and I use that term referring to the people I am related to by blood). I used to worry about that a lot growing up. I actually came to resent it. I went through a lot of inner turmoil to try and figure out why I wasn’t super close to my siblings, cousins, and Aunts and Uncles. I thought something was wrong with me. I never blamed it on the fact that my brother and sister were both considerably older than me, fifteen and seventeen years older, respectively. Or the fact that my extended family was spread all over the globe. Sometimes I thought that because my father died so young it severed us as a family unit. Part of me still thinks that might hold some weight but I can’t say for sure. Whatever the reason I grew up very disconnected from my family. Once my mother died I was pretty much a lone wolf. That’s just the way it was. And for the most part still is. I have love for my family and as an adult have come to accept things as they are, trying not to dwell on it so much anymore. I think the lack of a solid, dependable and safe family unit is what made me so independent while helping me develop as an outgoing, social being.
My husband says I make friends easily. That is not true. I am open to people and make acquaintances easily. I do however make friends. My true blue friends till the end are few and far between, but I do have them. And I know I am very lucky in that respect. Yet my ability to be open to and foster relationships on a variety of social levels has done me well. Now, that being said, I am not everyone’s cup of tea. For sure. I have a way about me, or shall I say my delivery, that people either find endearing and wonderfully fabulous or dreadful and offensively repellant. Either way is fine. I have learned with age, and much heartache, you can’t please everyone all the time.
My friends have always been important to me. I choose them wisely and only give them as much grief as I agree to take from them. When I got married my brother said something very poignant to me. After spending several hours huddled around a few beers at a table of my college buds he said to me at the end of the evening, “Ange, your friends really love you”. To which I responded, “Of course they do. They are the family I got to choose”. I didn’t say it to be hurtful, but I think it was a great view into him knowing who I was as a person. Being able to see me through the eyes of people that really knew me and were intertwined in my life.
By the time I had become ill, I had lived in Harrisburg almost seven years, had been in business for four years, and built a wealth of contacts and “human capital”. I had a large social circle, a huge Rolodex, and a small circle of intimate friends who had matured and grown with me over the years. The people in that circle are still with me today. I’d take a bullet for the few of them, as I know they would for me. When I was whisked away from Christine’s office in that ambulance I know one thing that went through both Keane’s and my mind as some point was, ‘Who do we call?”
Of course the obligatory calls were made. My brother and sister, Keane’s parents, and a few select others in my family. But no one on that list was here. No one could rush to the hospital to meet us. So when Keane asked me whom he should call, I thought of the closest few people to me at the time, my friends from CPAFE. The Central Pennsylvania Association for Female Executives was, and still is, an intelligent, diverse, and fun group of professional women. The organization helped me grow as a businesswoman in many ways. Over the years, my involvement had garnered me some really close-knit relationships with other women. Which is funny because as a rule of thumb I am not a fan of women in general. We as a species can be unbelievably annoying and unnecessarily complex. I have always preferred the company of men in both friendships and business relationships. But I digress.
Maria, her husband Bill, and Catharene were the first on site at the hospital. Maria lied and told the ER nurses she was my sister. Keane confirmed so they let her come back to see me. I don’t recall much of her and Bill’s initial reaction I just know they talked a lot to Keane. They went and retrieved our car from Christine’s office, and coordinated an army of CPAFE women to facilitate the goings on for the next several weeks of our lives. Those women, some of whom I barely knew, and others who I knew closely, came to our home every day. While I was in the hospital our home was cleaned, our dogs were walked and cared for, and I believe Keane rarely came home each night from a long day at my bedside to a fridge that wasn’t packed to the doors with food. I was amazed and a little worried that by the time I had come home, twenty different people had keys to our house. People would come by the house in shifts. They worked out a schedule to walk, feed, and play with our dogs. They left notes for Keane each day as to who did what and what was there for him to eat. Many of them came to the hospital. They brought in our mail and separated out the Get Well cards so Keane could bring them to the hospital each day and read them to me. They also kept each other informed on my progress and what still needed to be done. Keane was literally at the hospital thirteen to sixteen hours everyday for over two weeks and our household seemed to be magically managing itself. But we knew it was not.
After I released home the help did not stop. Although Keane did most things, people would call and see what we needed. They did our grocery shopping. Picked up household items for us. And not one person ever took a dime for that kindness.
On top of everything else I know a lot of those people came to the hospital to just to keep Keane company and be sure he was ok too. They kept calling the house to see what we needed for weeks after I was released.
After the smoke and haze of my brain had cleared a bit Keane told me all that was done for us. I was stunned, grateful, and extremely humbled by the immense acts of kindness. I remember talking to Catharene and saying, “I didn’t even realize that many people liked me!” Which was true. It was amazing to me that so many people could take time, and in some cases money, to do so many important things for us. For those people I will eternally be grateful. I will never forget the outpouring of kindness I had the privilege of being bestowed upon me in a time where it was needed most.
An act of kindness is a very powerful thing. A Roman philosopher once said, “Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness”. Through this experience I have learned two things; to be a kinder, gentler person and that family is what we create not what we are born into.
Although there are some individuals who did a great deal for me that I am not really in contact much with anymore, everyday I appreciate their presence in my life. Every day I wake and no matter how I am feeling my first thought is always the same. “Thank you”.
No comments:
Post a Comment