These were my immediate recollections upon seeing the photo of that particular bayou in Monday’s newspaper. That bayou where She was married to the man who became the father of their child … and is, these nearly forty years later, her husband. But at the time of her gifts to me … she was my soul’s hope … the lifting inspiration to my beleaguered Spirit. She believed in me when I had neither confidence nor belief in myself. She knew, in that beautiful core of her sensitive Self, the crushing weight of conflicts that besieged me. And she reached into my conflicted life with quietly deposited gems of healing, awakening, regenerating insight and hope. Hers was the freely given gift of unqualified and unencumbered love. Expressed in unobtrusive ways that were never-before experienced by me. I had no knowledge of the poets, nor of the philosophers, nor of the thinkers whose words she knew would minister to the agonies of my daily battles between my unrestrained idealism and un-tempered spiritualism, and the world in which I worked. Hers was the gift of, first, small “flotation devices” to keep me from emotional drowning. Then timbers of ideas and perspectives with which I could begin building bridges between my romantic idealisms and the stark demands of the corporate beaurocracies that my work thrust me into. And when I would see her in the hallways of that place in which we worked … she simply smiled. A smile that said “you are OK! … and I believe in you.”
That you, My Dear Reader, may know the permanent and ever-endearing power of allowing yourself to acknowledge that Still Small Voice within you when it whispers a message of concern for another … and then responding in whatever small way you find available to you … I recount this treasured memory that will forever reside in my heart. She did not resolve my conflicts … She did not conquer my personal demons … She simply, in love, let me know that I was not alone … and that someone cared, and believed in me. I am forever grateful and blessed.
IMAGE: Jerry Maloney Art
3 comments:
what a beautiful post this...so full of hope and love. thank you for sharing yourself here with us.
I do hope that I add to our common vocabulary of loving and caring interaction.
To clarify, and then to share for the use of others, the particulars of my life's experience, is my simple and elementary effort to facilitate our knowing and speaking the content of our hearts.
Your encouragement warms my heart and gives me comfort ... I thank you.
We never know what words of hope we might impart to someone, or how a compliment, a smile, or other gesture
might lighten someone's burden or brighten their day.
I am so glad that you found delight in someone's kindness that still brings a smile to your face - 40 years later!
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