When I drove back and forth to the hospital last week to visit Benjamin, I had a chance to listen to the radio. I was more often than not saturated with my own story, which had plenty of material to convince any compassionate listener that I deserved to wallow in self pity. If that was my idea of fun. But as chance would have it, the interviews on
NPR interrupted my self absorption.
One time there was a story about the child soldiers in Uganda, and their crimes against humanity. These little boys were kidnapped, and forced to carry rifles and murder other children. Heartwrenching. Another day it was about a woman who was nine months pregnant, whose husband was freshly back from Iraq but had not yet started to receive any benefits. They both worked minimum wage jobs, and when the apartment flooded,
they lost everything. Their ability to get to work on time floundered. In less than a week they became jobless and homeless. She wrote a blog about the paper thin wall between a majority of the population and poverty.
These people put a serious dent in my ability to feel sorry for myself, as I drove along the tree lined driveway to visit my child in a well run medical facility, whose treatment was covered
by insurance.
Self pity can be alluring. I certainly fall into its deceptive paralysis. And my arguments are convincing, at least to me. This week my daughters started sports camp and arrived to find out they did not have the required physical exam. John and I spent the next four hours faxing, downloading, calling doctors, leaving messages, driving to clinics, waiting in line, and filling out paper work, but the twins still sat all day on the
sidelines crying. Then I woke up.
"I can think of mothers who would leap at the chance to spend half a day and a hundred bucks to get a clean bill of health for their daughters." I told Aurelle as we walked out of the clinic with the required ticket to play ball. When the nurse called out goodbye, Aurelle answered as she always does when she hangs up the phone or leaves the house.
"Love you!"
