Helping_Other_People

This story I would like to tell is about friends of mine. Friends of my husband’s and mine, who recently got refugee visa’s from the Ukraine, and are now living in Oakville, CT.

Twenty something years ago, my husband is working in the shop, and the woman who was the engineer, she was crying. He said, “What is wrong Galina?” She said that my friend Irina in the Ukraine, she lost her husband at 28 years old of diabetes, because if the was money, there was no medicine, and if there was medicine, there was no money.

Sometimes knowing you have a choice isn’t obvious. Sort of, “What, I can choose?”

I do not read the newspapers, nor watch the news.

I choose my reality.

I sometimes imagine myself in a place of turmoil like Jerusalem. I stand there, eyes closed, with ripples of “illumination” going out from me, as if a pebble were tossed in a pond. Every second, going out hundreds of miles.

Then, at the same time, I picture myself in the center of China, doing the same.

In our home, whenever someone sits down to eat anything, someone else in the home sits down too, just to keep them company.

Not necessarily to make conversation, or eat something too, but just to be with them.

A long time ago, I worked with someone who came from Taiwan. We were talking about lunch, and he said, “People should not eat alone” – this was a deep and fervent part of his up-bringing.

Grandpa always wore a three piece suit with a white Oxford shirt. In the heat of summer, he removed the vest. In the winter, when he went on his daily walks, he added a topcoat and a fedora to his outfit.

Two blocks from his house was a small grocery store where my brother Mike worked as a manager.

Every day, grandpa, in his late eighties, walked to the store to visit Mike and to pick up an item or two.

I was born into a prepared place here,
Where geniuses leave their marks,
That everything is better still.

Thank you you who first sung a song.
Perhaps the birds led the way.

Thank you you who first baked a pot from clay.
Perhaps fiery stones led the way.

Thank you you who first made a word.
Perhaps the call of sheep led the way.

Thank you you who first picked berries and nuts as food.
Perhaps you watched the deer and squirrel.

One of the key things that retired people have to do to maintain a healthy lifestyle is staying busy. Watching TV all day, every day, is a recipe for decay and decline. This is something that working people sometimes have difficulty understanding - because they have to be busy every day, it can be hard to grasp how important it is to remain occupied when work does not fill the day.

You’re staying home.
You’re washing hands.
You’re drinking water.

Now what?
Are you still anxious?

Do you realize the entire world is now focusing single-pointedly on well-being?
Everyone in their own way.
Vast numbers, hidden, like stars in the sky in the daylight.

The doctors and nurses and researchers in their way.
The caregivers in their way.
The people of all religions in their way.
The light-workers in their way.

On my walk, I met a neighbor who told me this story. He had an ulcer, and so his stomach had been hurting him. Some of his friends convinced him to go on a men’s retreat with his church.

He reluctantly went, even more reluctantly because they were serving pizza, which would not agree with his stomach. Near the end of the retreat, he was surprised because the leader said, “Let’s pray for Donald.” So everyone laid their hands on Donald and prayed for him.

Afterwards, there was no longer a burning in his stomach. He was completely cured during those few minutes that day.

One of the most popular games with my children was to write on the child’s back, and have them tell me what I wrote.

It starts really simple, like writing an “A” or an “O”. Then I’d draw some symbols like a plus sign, a box, a triangle, or even a tree.

Then more challenging was writing a word or a phrase.

This is really fun, sensing what someone is writing on your back. It could be your arm or leg, too. But we used the back.

We would reverse roles, too. And I would guess what they were writing.

How do you regain your confidence when you feel it slipping away, right out the window?

There’s a woman who had lost her confidence in her early 20s. She felt inadequate, and she felt she was a failure. When she joined in in conversations, she felt that the words she had to contribute were not worth speaking at all, that she had nothing to say.

She was a married woman, and she gave birth to twins. At the same time she had the twins, her father also came down with dementia.