What doesn't kill me makes me stronger

I just read my sister’s blog and find myself wanting to respond to some of the things she said. 

She was talking specifically about what to do and say to friends and loved ones when they are experiencing a loss.  As someone who has suffered a lot of pain in my lifetime and yet managed to come through on the other side and better for it.  I feel that perhaps I have the ability to say what one can and should do when others are hurting. 

Mindy mentioned the old Biblical phrase, “this too shall pass” and it is a good one, but it isn’t the phrase that has brought be through the fires in my life. 

From the Bible, my phrase, since I was a child was “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me”.  That is what I use to face things on my own in my own life. 

But, there are two phrases that have also helped me.  The first one is a more recent discovery, based on a song that I enjoy.  “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”.  Well, it’s true.  If you walk through the fires of life and come out on the other side, you have deeper calluses on your feet.  The deeper the callus, the better you will be able to walk through the next fire. 

The other one, is a phrase my husband taught me, and to be perfectly honest the first time he said these words to me, I was skeptical.  When I was down and out and felt like my professional life had come to a certain end, he said to me “everything happens for a reason”. 

Okay sweetheart then spell it out for me please, because I could see no reason that I was having to go through what I was going through. 

What was the reason that I spent hours at my mother-in-laws side watching her slowly die?

What was the reason that a month later I lost a very dear friend to cancer?

What was the reason that in just a few short months after that I lost a $50 k a year job? 

Well, some of the answers were obvious, some not so much.  My mother-in-law passed from this world in my home with me by her side.  The reason it happened this way was so that she could rest in peace and leave this world knowing she was loved. 

My friend fought a hard, hard battle, and it wasn’t getting any better, was never going to get any better, so allowing her to leave me was the best thing I could do for her. 

Losing my job?  Well that one was a bit tougher because it left Rich and I in a terrible financial position, and threw me into a genuine depression that I didn’t think I would ever come out of.  I cried daily, literally for months.  I was self-condemning and considered myself a worthless human being.  I tried to hide it from everyone but Rich.  He knew my heartbreak and tolerated it better than any man should ever have to. 

So reason number one, I could say was so that I could see just what a great person I had married, a man who was caring, understanding, supportive, and more than anything patient.

 

Then comes the next lesson.  What was the reason that I took a job at Wal-Mart, worked there for 13 months then walked out to go work for someone whom I considered at the time to be my best friend, only to have that job end in less than a month? 

Another tough one to explain, but in the end, yes there was a reason for all of it. 

First, working at Wal-Mart was good for me because I had to become friendlier and more outgoing in order to do the job I was doing.  I had to smile and speak to people I didn’t know.  I had to carry on conversations and deal with difficult people on occasion. 

These were things I had never been good at.  I am not the "people person" that my sister is.  I was always happy about the lack of human interaction I had at my Community Action job, but at Wal-Mart I had no shield, no door I could close and be alone in my work. 

So, that experience happened so that I could become a more personable person. 

Why did I have to go through loosing not only my best friend but also my next job? 

That one took a while to figure out. 

First of all.  I think I had used poor judgment in choosing my friend, and I needed to see her for the person she really was.  Spending 30 days with her as my boss ripped off the blinders and I was able to see that she was not the kind of person who should be my friend. 

There was a lot going on there that doesn’t need to be drug out into the open, but I’ll just say she was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, pretending to be a good Christian woman, when in fact some of the things going on in her personal life were so horrible they came close to being criminal, seriously. 

But I also had to lose that job so that the door would be open to another opportunity. 

It was just a few month after that, as I sat at home unemployed, that I came across an ad for a stringer for Lincoln Daily News.  For those who may not know, stringers are like free-lance reporters in that the work is sparse and paid per published unit.  They are different from free-lancers in that the stringer is obligated to just one publication. 

I responded to the ad and by November of that year I was working for LDN as a stringer with an estimated monthly income of $75.00, yes $75.00 a month. 

At first I felt guilty about taking the job because it wasn’t really enough money to make a significant difference in our financial situation, but as Rich and I talked about it, we agreed it was better than nothing, which was what I had prior to the job. 

When I interviewed for the stringer position, I was told that the highest paid stringer in the history of LDN earned $3000 in a year.  Well, truth be told, I blew that record out of the water in just a few months. 

The stringer turned into the ‘city desk’ reporter and I was guaranteed $200 a month after working for LDN for only 30 days. 

I moved on to being an at-large reporter, and started doing special features like the personalities of the week. 

Everything happens for a reason?  Well here comes the big one.  Doing face to face interviews with strangers is something I don’t know that I would have been capable of doing, had it not been for the 13 months I spent at Wal-Mart.  Ha!  What a deal, Rich was right, lesson learned. 

As time progressed, it was discovered that I had some fairly decent photography skills.  That led to covering events.  The big one came the next summer when I was offered a whopping $300 to cover the livestock barns and 4-H shows at the Logan County Fair. 

As time passed, the job grew and grew.  Then I was offered the opportunity to work 3 hours a day in the office posting classified ads.  From there, the bosses learned I had bookkeeping skills and I started doing the billings and my hours increased. 

Over time, and it didn’t happen overnight, it took a couple of years, I had worked my stringer position into something very close to a full time job. 

I earned the respect of my employers and when the paper experienced a serious shake up in 2012, I was standing in just the right place to benefit from it. 

I was offered and accepted the position of News Director, and job became a fulltime career with a nice annual salary. 

Now here is the kicker to this part of the story.  When I was a child, writing and creating stories was my passion.  In high school, it was the career I wanted, but it just didn’t happen. Life took me on another journey instead, but one that once again “happened for a reason”. 

Had I achieved the goal early in life, what would I have missed?  Too much to recount, but most importantly I would have missed the opportunity to live my life with a husband who loves and understands me, and believes that everything happens for a reason. 

But the story doesn’t end there.  What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.   

Taking on the new position with LDN had its challenges.  I was immediately thrown into working with the editor in chief whom up to this point I had not been exposed to all that much.  The managing editor who was now gone had always kept himself between me and Jan, so we really didn’t know each other, or understand each other. 

We went through some pretty tough times, and I had days I wanted to just throw up my hands and walk out, and I’m sure she had days when she wished I would. 

But, for once in my life, I resisted the temptation to move on, maybe because over the years, I had learned to be stronger than my impulses, to stick it out and fight if you will to achieve what I want to achieve. 

I look back now and realize I really didn’t fight for my job at community action.  Hind sight is 20-20 and I’m glad now that I didn’t, but still I see that was my weakness, not standing up for what I wanted and needed. 

With Jan, I did fight for my position, sometimes literally as we had several disagreements in those first few weeks of really getting to know each other.  But I’ll fast forward just a little to say that now, 2 years into it, we are an unbeatable team on LDN and we work together so well that we even have simultaneous thoughts and can read each other’s minds sometimes. 

Within a few weeks of all these big changes Jim and Jan suffered a gigantic loss.  Their son-in-law whom they loved dearly died suddenly from an aneurism in the heart. They were devastated and to a certain extent paralyzed by it all. 

I couldn’t begin to know what they were feeling, but I could understand the devastating pain, the desperation to be there for their daughter, and the reason why that the paper had to take a backseat for them.   

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. 

I had suffered losses, too many of them.  My grandparents, my dad, my mother-in-law, a sister-in-law, a brother-in-law, aunts, uncles, and dear friends, I understood loss all too well. 

I also understood that there was nothing I could say that would make it better for them, but there was something I could do.  I could run the paper, take charge, and I could shield them from the worries of that part of their life.  I did that. 

Chris was a much loved, well thought of young man.  The night Rich and I went to the visitation, we truly stood in line over 3 hours just waiting to get to the casket.  It was hard for Rich and I both because of the losses we had suffered, but we felt the need to be there regardless and “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me”. 

Like so many others, I wondered what I would say when I got to the receiving line, what could possibly come out of my mouth that would be meaningful to them.  But when our time finally arrived, it wasn’t what I said that mattered.  It was what they said. 

It was first Jim, and as Rich and I came face to face with him, he gave me a hug, but he spoke to Rich.  He said to him, “Thank-you for letting us have so much of your wife.  Thank-you for letting her be a part of us right now.” 

Jan and I hugged, and she said to me, “I trust you explicitly, and we couldn’t be doing this right now without you.”  All I could say was, “I’m doing the best I can, so you won’t have to worry.”  And she said “I’m not worried, not at all, and I wouldn’t be able to say that if you weren’t here.” 

So in the end, it was nothing that I said that made their life better or easier, but it was what I did. 

When people suffer losses, words are not always the important part of the equation.  Another old saying, “actions speak louder than words” comes to mind.  What you say doesn’t matter as much as what you do. 

So back to my sister, and her friend who thought she had found a new love and a new purpose in life only to have it taken away.  What can you say?  Not much.  For this friend, yes, going through this will eventually make her a stronger better person, but it could take a while.  And yes, this all did happen for a reason, but it may take years for that reason to be realized. 

It may come someday down the road, when her son experiences heartbreak and she can truly understand what he is feeling because she has felt it too.  It may make her a stronger, better mother.   

This may have also happened so she could eventually find the right person, the one who is good for her and good to her.  She may have had to experience something bad in order to make her recognize something good when it comes along. 

But for my sister right now, what can she do?  First she can listen, just listen.  For the most part, people who are going through a tough time do want to talk about it.  They want to get the words out into the open air.  It is a relief for them like suddenly exhaling after having held your breath for a long period of time. 

But, they are also afraid to, because they don’t necessarily want other’s opinions or even their sympathy, they just want to talk. 

And then there are the actions.  Send an email, mail a card, buy a balloon, do something that will brighten her day.  The words don’t matter.  Something as simple as “I care about you’, “I’m here if you need me”, or “You’ll always be special to me” are enough to let her know she isn’t alone even though she feels like she is. 

For the friend who lost a loved one, sometimes saying I’m sorry for your loss is all you have, and that is okay because what you’re really saying is “you matter to me or I wouldn’t be here”.  But again, I look at what can I do to show this person I love them and am hurting for them. 

I hate platitudes.  People will come up to you and say, “I know just what you’re going through”.  Well no, you really don’t because you are not inside my skin.  Or it will be “if there is anything I can do call me”.  Really?  Call you?  I’m having a hard time getting through the day on cruise control.  What makes you think I can think well enough to come up with something you can do? 

I started doing this years ago, and have made it a part of my life.  When someone I know loses a loved one, I call them and ask them if they need any laundry done.  Sounds silly right?  But the thinking is what can I offer to do, what am I capable of doing for them right now that could help them out? 

For me, I’m more than capable of doing laundry.  For someone else it could be does your car need gas?  Does it need washed?  Is anyone helping you in the kitchen, can I come do that for you?  Do you have people coming in on the plane or train, can I go pick them up for you?  Do you have enough beds, someone could sleep at my house.  Or it could be something as simple as go to store and buy a load of paper plates, cups, silverware, and napkins so no one has to wash dishes. 

Not that you should want to do it for this reason, but none-the-less, when it is all said and done, the person who did the laundry or washed the car will be remembered for their act of kindness much longer than the person who said “I know just what you’re going through” and more pleasantly as well. 

I can attest to this personally through my mom.  When my dad died, we didn’t want a dinner at the church.  Instead we had everyone come to our house before the funeral.  There was a mob of people there.  We ate lunch then went to the funeral and the graveside service. 

When we came home, two of my cousins were there washing the dishes and cleaning up the mess from the dinner.  My mom to this day though it has been decades, remembers that before she remembers anything else.  Their actions spoke louder than words, and their deeds spoke volumes to her about how they cared. 

So in the end, what is the moral to this long and laborious story?   

Well I guess it would have to be, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me because what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger and it all happens for a reason.