It's been a draining few days for me (Q). Congrats to Emily, I did finish my Wheel of Time book last Thursday. Bravo.
Yesterday was my first day back at school. My favorite shirt oddly ripped about two inches just off the seam of the buttons. (It's not even tight on my ripped abdomen there) Then when I was at school my tooth broke :( Luckily a little spot of super-glue has it attached back to my retainer.
Over the last two weeks I went to a Trauma Intervention Program (TIP) training that was quite time consuming, but also fairly emotionally draining. The gist of it is that we volunteer 3 12 hour shifts a month and then will go out with first responders to talk to the families left behind after a trauma (usually a death). Throughout the entire training we talked about death, and trauma, and even spent a whole day talking about suicide. We even spent one night taking a tour of the Coroner's office. Throughout the week my thoughts have been on Eric a lot. I miss that guy.
At some point when I was growing up I heard a story about Eric. Apparently he once picked up a hitchhiker that was trying to get to Sky Harbor Airport. The story I heard was that Eric drove the guy to the airport and then even bought him a plane ticket to go where he was trying to go. I don't know if Eric had died when I heard it or not, but it is the one story about him that sticks with me most. I have often had that story come to my mind when I see hitchhikers on the road. Though my time in Romania did in many ways numb me to any emotional reaction of seeing someone in need begging on the street, I have made a point to help when I can.
Today as I was driving home from a long 12-hour day at school, I stopped by Wal-Mart to pick something up for Molly. As I was leaving a young (20 something) girl and her little sister stopped me and asked for money to buy some baby food. I wanted to get home because I'm tired and really don't have money to spare either, but that one story of Eric kept coming back into my head as I tried to make excuses of why I could not buy them baby food. They offered to give me their names are licenses plate numbers to look them up so I could get reimbursed when her check finally was delivered. Finally, I did say that I'd help them with the food and didn't expect them to repay it. I'd like to say that I did it out of the kindness of my heart, but I think mostly I did it as some sort of homage to the memory of my older brother.
I'm not sure if they were scamming me or not--but it is one way that I have found to turn my brother's death into something positive...I hope. It is one way that I am able to keep his memory bright and find a way for it to mean something.
Here's the thing with helping people (though I often don't listen to my own advice): the main reason we do it is not because they're no scamming us. We do it to show compassion. And the person using baby food as a plea to get money could use compassion even if they blow some of it on something else. And if she was legit (and some of them have to be), you can rest better knowing she wasn't turned away. I think as homage to both our brothers is a good reason to be kind. Good work.
ReplyDelete