Better Days Ahead

Many years ago, a friend whose life I thought perfect, let me read a card her husband had given her.  Inside was a simple handwritten line:  "Better days ahead".  As I was to learn, my friend's marriage had been in desperate trouble for a long time and with a small child to raise, she and her husband were trying marriage counseling to see if things could be put to right.  The three straightforward words sounded more like a promise to me than a wish and after I heard the story of their unraveling marriage, I thought it a truly hopeful sign, perfectly penned.

Winter has always been a favorite season, but this time around it has come with a flurry of sad things:  a friend's father died suddenly, loved ones have been plagued with difficult challenges and someone I care about is having a big surgery.  Now, a person on the periphery of my work world has taken his own life - a young father.  It seems as though the universe simply held its breath until after the holidays and then let it rip.  It has been very dark, too...the darkest of January's.  And snowless.

There have been recent nights when I went to bed feeling nothing but aching compassion and love for everyone I know.  Along with the prayers on my lips, I dared to send hope to that secret place of magical thinking where pain eases and tragic spells are broken with good deeds.  But instead of doing things for strangers and loved ones and using it as a fervent bargaining tool, I discovered that no matter what the outcomes, it always makes sense to be kind.  Afterall, as said best by the author, mystic, and irascible fellow human being known as Mark Twain, "...everyone we meet is carrying a heavy burden".

Snow is still not on the forecast and the darkness is too low for even one starry glint from above. But as I continue to support the troubled people in my realm, I do believe there are better days ahead.  We need only wait.  With loving kindness for each other.