A Gift

I have an Instagram account, and a Facebook account, and, man, I really love social media. I think it’s the “look at me! look at me!” youngest child syndrome. I’m an extrovert who is EXTRA (according to my nephew). I generally post positive things, like beautiful things I see in nature, and smiling selfies: lots and lots of smiling selfies.

In fact, I post so many smiling selfies and so much positivity, I tend to get accused of being “Miss Super Happy Positive”. That’s not the worst thing someone could call me, but I also think it’s funny. I think the image I project makes it appear as if I have no bad days, and no hurdles to overcome.

I received a call this afternoon from a friend. Her brother is dying. Or maybe he’s not. He’s in the tenuous in-between. I get calls like this sometimes. I have people around me who know that I am going to understand their grief and suffering and I can talk to them about it. As I told her this afternoon, “Thank you for letting me use this weird little bit of expertise I have for the good of someone else.”

I know and understand. I have lost a sibling. I have lost a parent. I have watched two of the people I love most in this world suffer, struggle, fade away, and die. There was nothing I could do. It was beyond my control. These experiences, and the aftermath, are what gives me this “weird little bit of expertise” in these matters. I will always take these calls, and I will always feel honored that someone felt like reaching out to me in some of their most painful and difficult moments.

So why all the smiling selfies? Why so much sunshine and rainbows?

It’s because I remember so clearly how things were back then. I remember the day-to-day difficulty of watching my dad’s condition deteriorate. I remember the daily calls from my sister, in which the physical and emotional pain she was enduring came straight through the phone and cut into my heart. I remember thinking at the time how blissful it would be to have a day that was ordinary. I sometimes daydreamed about an average day in which everyone I loved was pain-free and happy.

I now have the luxury of living the kinds of days I was dreaming about. I have some loved ones facing difficult situations, but I believe they will be okay. We are not in the emergency zone. However, the nature of this life is that nothing is certain and nothing stays the same. It might sound very dark, but those days will come again. The days of hospital visits, pain medications, and making decisions about someone else’s life. It is very likely these scenarios are part of my future in some form.

When I’m in the midst of pouring everything I have into helping my loved one through a difficult health crisis, and things seem so sad and bleak, I want to remember the time I’m living in now and know that I appreciated the gift of the ordinary days. I want to remember that if I’m extremely fortunate, I’ll have days like that again.

These ordinary days are a gift. And that makes me smile*

*(and then take a smiling selfie, and then post it on social media)