World of Hurt

The tiny little girl screamed out in pain. She hopped on one foot between nearly breathless sobs. It seems Hannah had stepped onto the deck of our house for a moment only to return inside with a splinter in her foot.

Her mom and I pleaded with her to let one of us look at it. We reasoned with her telling her we could look at it to determine how to remove the splinter. Hannah would not agree to it. She didn’t want us anywhere near the splinter. She did though want relief from the pain it was causing.

We tried reasoning more with her. If she wanted the pain to end we had to look at it. It wasn’t going to get any better just crying over it. Still, just expressions of pain output in tears and screeches from Hannah.

Jennifer left the room leaving me alone with Hannah. Thumbing through the imaginary parenting manual imprinted on my brain from my parents and from watching other parents through the years, I landed on page 3 which told me to keep begging Hannah to let us help her. I reassured her I wouldn’t hurt her foot any if she would only rest it on the chair so I could look at the area causing her pain. I wouldn’t even touch her foot I reassured her. I only wanted to look at the intrusive sliver of wood. The headstrong girl refused as she hunkered down into the pain.

I flipped over to page 7 of that imaginary manual. Empathy was the heading. This seemed like a three dollar word for a much more valuable ability. I could go here though on this day. I looked at Hannah then asked her to look at one of my fingers. She made no real attempt to look through her grief but I continued anyway. I noted how a few days earlier I had run my hand along the top of one of our wooden dining room chairs ending up with a splinter. It was my way to make a connection. We have this in common. You have a splinter. I had one. I know how you feel. I know how it hurts. My splinter no longer hurts though because I looked at it then worked to remove it. Through watery eyes, she continued to cry out in pain but still refused to let me help.

Thinking the empathy card would work threw me off my game a bit. So I took that imaginary parenting manual and flipped toward the back to page 78. It landed on reverse psychology. I perked up a bit thinking how at Hannah’s age she often uses this tactic herself so it just might work. I paused a moment before looking at her and saying something to the effect of how I didn’t want to look at the splinter because I probably wouldn’t know what to do anyway. She continued to sob not even recognizing my attempt to ease the issue.

I sighed deeply uncertain of what to do next. Jennifer walked back in the room with a pair of tweezers. She began asking Hannah to let her look at the splinter. Hannah spied the tweezers before howling even more. Jennifer began working her mom magic on Hannah though. The little girl can be a tough sell. She would eventually agree to let Jennifer look at the splinter but would then change her mind before crying in agony even more than before.

I knew Hannah would eventually come around to getting the help she needed because I knew the calm assurances of her mother would finally resonate with her. It might take a few minutes of continued crying but we would all three arrive at that one brief instant it would take to remove the splinter. While I waited for this moment, I fast-forwarded our lives together thinking about times ahead when this precious little girl would feel the hurts the world unselfishly shares. I thought about friends who might move to another city leaving her lonely for a time. I thought about how some, maybe even people she will never really know, may hurt her with their words or actions or judgements of her. I thought about how she might cry at the death of someone she loves knowing that someone loved her without question or reservation or limits. I thought about some boy who one day will break her heart without any thought to how deeply his words will sting and stick in her heart or how long it would take for those scars to heal. With Hannah’s crying ringing in my ears, I paused even longer to say a short prayer that this boy is able to avoid me when he does this to my little girl.

It wasn’t long after that Jennifer was able to calm Hannah enough to examine the splinter then remove it. Hannah was then dancing around the room in her typical energetic manner. She would talk how the splinter was no longer hurting. She would talk about her bravery in toughing out the pain of the splinter then its removal. The hurt was over then forgotten. It was then I realized I hadn’t taken note of exactly how Jennifer had convinced Hannah to remove the splinter.

I though am not sure whatever words Jennifer used would work for me. With Hannah, she has expectations for me and other expectations for Jennifer and a number of those expectations do not match. I know from my own experience how sometimes it is just that mother-child relationship that supersedes everything else that just makes things better. It is that unique bond they share that can move mountains and remove splinters from time to time. I came to realize on this day that without that bond those two share what a world of hurt Hannah and I would really live in.

A Good Man Died Today

Twenty six years ago this fall I wrote the following…

A good man died today. He won’t be honored with fancy tributes by eloquent speakers. He won’t be memorialized by having his name left behind on a building. The famous won’t bow their heads in grief as they recall their friend. That gesture will be left for his family and friends.

He never found the cure for cancer, the evil that eventually conquered him. He never wrote a timely novel. He never solved the energy crisis.

He did live a quiet life never asking for recognition. He did what he had to do for his country, for his family, for his God. He quietly touched the lives of people in a simple way that can never be measured.

I know he is better now that he no longer has to suffer from his illness. I know any concerns he had about the everyday problems of life are now gone. Still, it all seems so unfair, even cruel. Here was a man who was good and decent, gone long before he should be, yet, tonight on the news we’ll hear how someone drove while drunk and caused a horrible accident in an irresponsible way or how a dangerous criminal has been released from prison on a technicality.

We need more good men like the one who died today. We don’t need more movie stars with their phony images and shallow standards. We don’t need more politicians who only have regard for their reelection. We don’t need more athletes pouting because their multi-million dollar salary just isn’t enough.

We need more good men like the one who died today. We need men to live quiet, decent lives. We need men to do what they have to do for the things and the ones they love. We need men to quietly influence people in ways that cannot be measured or taken away.

As unfair as it seems, I know this good man has gone home. Maybe it’s selfishness or maybe even anger that make his death seem so wrong. While his absence will place a great void in the lives of so many, it is good to know part of that void will be filled by the influence he left behind.

Now faith takes over. Now is the time for the words of that old hymn to ring more true than before,

“Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder

Why it should be thus all the day long

While there are others living about us

Never molested though in the wrong

Farther along, we’ll know more about it

Farther along, we’ll understand why…”

For those of us left behind, life goes on. And somewhere tomorrow, someone will say “a good man died today.”

God, help us all.

As I write these words another good man I know died this past week. When he died something made me think of this piece I had written, in some ways, a lifetime ago. It made me miss my friend who passed away in 1992. It also made me miss my friend who had just passed away. It also brought to mind so many other men and women in between these two who are no longer here but whose lives spoke louder than their words ever could.

I know that death comes to each one of us. It comes to those we love. It comes to those we have a hard time loving. In retrospect, maybe that is one thing about life that is fair, or, maybe, more appropriate, equal. None of us get out of it alive. That is a pretty level playing field. While I don't always understand why people die when they do, I understand in a different way than I did in years past that those we cherish do die and there is a certain peace that can reside there. That doesn't necessarily mean that the sting of death is less painful when it happens, it just places it in a perspective for me that seems to make some sense, maybe not in my heart, but in my mind.

And while that reconciliation of sorts seems to make peace with some feelings, I am not so sure some of the words I wrote then are any more positive today. I say that because when I re-read the piece several times, I became very sad at words I had written years ago. I was sad because the things that so dominated so many lives then still seem to reign over so many lives now: crass celebrities, greedy politicians, arrogant athletes. Throw in today’s sewer stream of social media where many say things with their fingers and a keyboard that they would never dare verbalize to someone’s face and it can be rather disheartening that we, as a whole, just seem to refuse to learn what the important things in life are while we are still living.

As I said before, God, help us all.