March's blog was written by my daughter, Melanie, and addresses the needs of "functioning" sick people. Melanie has chronic neurological Lyme disease and knows where of she speaks. Melanie presented this as a speech for Toastmasters and won 3rd place in their International Speaking Contest.
(c)March 2017 Melanie Goodman Deal
I can change the world,
with my own two hands
Make a better place, with my own two hands
Make a kinder place, oh with my, oh with my own two hands
With my own, with my own two hands
~~ from “With My Own
Two Hands”, by Ben Harper
Let me ask you something.What
does it take before you will do something for someone else? If you knew it
didn’t have to be something big, like money, or even a huge amount of your time,
would it change your answer in any way? How many of you are thinking, “Well…it
depends.”?
A couple of months ago, I was
listening to a storytelling podcast called “The Moth” and heard the story
“Luminaria” by Denise Scheurmann. This story centers around the time when she
was 15 years old. Her dad was terminally ill and in the hospital during the
holiday season. As you can probably imagine, she, her mother, and her brother were
consumed with everything they were having to deal with. They felt alone, and the
holidays were not on their minds AT ALL. As they were coming home from the
hospital on Christmas Eve, they noticed as they entered their neighborhood that
the luminarias were lit. It was a tradition in their neighborhood to light them
each year and place them along their driveways and sidewalks to welcome in
Christmas. They thought, “Our house will be the only one not lit up”, and that
just got them even more down. But as they drove up to their house, they saw
that their luminarias were lit. An anonymous neighbor (or neighbors…they never
did find out) had decided to do something for this family to make sure they
felt included in the neighborhood tradition.
That may seem like a small thing,
but to this family, it meant the world. Denise said it made them realize they
were not alone, and that people cared. In fact, she said that years later, when
she was going through a divorce, remembering what her neighbors had done all
those years ago helped her get through many dark moments.
Denise’s story resonated with
me, because it made me think of my own story a bit. For those of you who may
not know, I was diagnosed with Chronic Neurological Lyme Disease in late 2012.
That diagnosis came after more than a year of knowing that SOMETHING was wrong
with me, but not knowing exactly what.I spent thousands of dollars on tests that
showed nothing definitive. I thought I was crazy because many doctors told me
it was all in my head or was just due to “stress”. I lost many important people
in my life because they couldn’t deal with me talking about it so much and
thought I was just looking for attention. During that time, and many times
since, I’ve often felt alone. Lyme Disease has taken over my life.
However, God has amazing timing.
He has placed several people in my path who have done for me what Denise’s
neighbors did for her on that long ago Christmas Eve. They’ve made my world a better
place, and they probably don’t even realize they’ve done anything at all.
I’m what you call a “functioning”
sick person. You might be asking, “What does that mean?” Well, I go to my job,
and I take care of myself and my family most days. I even exercise pretty
regularly.Most people don’t even realize I’m sick. I don’t LOOK sick.Many
people think, “If she’s REALLY sick, then shouldn’t she be in a wheelchair or
something?” People don’t have a clue how to deal with someone like me. They
don’t understand how many things I love that I’ve had to give up in order to
“function” and make it through each day without being a burden. It can be pretty
lonely.
In hopes of finding anything that
could help me make sense of what I was dealing with both physically and
emotionally, I stumbled across a blog called My Color is Lyme, written by a woman named Jennifer. Her post, Confessions
of a “Functioning Lymie”, brought me to tears. It was like I wrote that
post! The whole time I was reading, I was nodding my head in agreement,
exclaiming, “Yes…YES! That’s it, exactly!” Like me, Jennifer struggled with
various health issues for a long time before finally getting a diagnosis. Like
me, she “functions” by being able to continue going to work each day and taking
care of herself and her pets. And, like me, many people in her life walked away
because they assume she is fine and should stop complaining.
People suffering, but
“functioning”, like Jennifer and I, don’t usually feel comfortable putting
their stories out there for the world to see, because they’re afraid of backlash
and more abandonment. But Jennifer decided to do something, and by sharing her
story, she has given me (and I’m sure many others) a bit of hope. She had the
courage to put into words what I was unable (or, if I’m being honest,
unwilling) to.
You never know who might be
going through a tough time.There have been others who, like Jennifer, have made
me feel less alone. Sometimes simply asking, “Is there anything I can do?” is
enough.
Think back to Denise’s story.It
probably took all of 5 minutes to light those luminarias. No big deal. But what
WAS a big deal was those neighbors decided to do something; a something that
meant the world to this family, giving them a bit of happiness not just for
that evening, but for a lifetime. To this day, that small gift is still giving Denise
some comfort.
At the end of her story, Denise challenged
her audience to write their names and numbers down and give it to someone right
then and there, as a reminder that they are never alone. How powerful is THAT? Another
example of something that seems like a small thing to do. But imagine how it
would feel to someone who is going through a tough time, someone who feels like
they’re all alone in the world…imagine how seeing that little note from you
might be what is needed to lift them up and remind them that someone cared
enough to do something.
Author Samuel Johnson said, “The
true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no
good.” I ask you to think about that for a minute. What is the
something that YOU can do to make the world a better, kinder place…with your
own two hands?
