compassion

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Lean on Me

February 19, 2012 in blogging, compassion, Family, health, hope, support networks by boxcarkids | 2 comments

Remember that old Bill Withers song -

Lean on me, when you’re not strong
and I’ll be your friend,
I’ll help you carry on…

I’ve always liked that song.  Of course I always picture myself as the stalwart one helping a friend when I sing it in the shower – not the person doing the leaning.  I internalized early on the lesson of not counting on other people but instead being resourceful and competent, taking care of yourself.  It’s probably a lesson I’m passing on to my kids.  Be self-sufficient.  Learn to do things for yourself.  Don’t ask for, or expect help.  But at the same time lend a helping hand whenever you can.  It’s our family motto (one of them) – if someone needs help and you can help them, then you do so.

Of course our current circumstances have necessitated asking for help from time to time, whether it was enrolling the kids in Medi-Cal health insurance, asking a friend to take the kids for an afternoon or even overnight, or as of late to help with a tax issue with the IRS.  This past week I had to ask for help from a number of people – people whom I probably won’t be able to repay or even return the favor (a most uncomfortable situation) and it got me thinking about support networks and the nature and value of them.

As Americans we have, for the most part, become somewhat separated from traditional support networks.  The saying ‘It takes a village’ might still hold true, but most of us don’t have that village anymore.  We grow up and leave home (I moved to California at age 17 to start college), we might move several times in our careers or to accommodate a spouse’s career moves.  We lose touch with the high school friends we thought we would know all our lives, and then do the same thing with college roommates and grad school buddies.  We send holiday cards and catch up at conventions or reunions but it would be a stretch to consider them our village.

We make friends at work, at church, with other soccer moms, people whose lives intersect ours because we find ourselves in the same place at the same time and we are social animals and need and enjoy the social contact.  But would the fellow you share a joke with at the coffee pot in the break room, or the mom who commiserates with you about your kids’ crazy extracurricular schedules really ‘be there’ for you if you needed help?  Probably not.  Nevertheless those social contacts can provide some stress relief – laughter is good medicine and other soccer moms have been known to help out with carpooling – so even these superficial relationships can be beneficial.

When you become unemployed, and worse, remain unemployed, you lose some of those connections.  Work ‘friends’ tend to drop away fairly quickly – maybe they are just uncomfortable around you or maybe there’s a subconscious feeling that your layoff might be contagious.  You continue to call or email for awhile – networking – but eventually it becomes a contact that is more painful than beneficial.  At some point you can’t afford to enroll your kids in soccer or whatever other activity they were doing – dues, uniforms, activity fees – it’s just not in the budget any longer.  Friends stop inviting you out, or over.  Partly it’s because you are a bit of a wet blanket with your endless discussion of the economic news, or your endless pestering them for job connections.  Or maybe it’s because you can’t exactly repay them by picking up the tab the next time, or having them over for dinner.  And really, how long can they say to you “Don’t worry, you’ll find something!”

Eventually you are left with one or two hardcore friends, neighbors who can’t really avoid you, Facebook ‘friends’ you haven’t met in real life, the clerk in the grocery store and your kids’ teachers who have to talk to you at parent-teacher conferences. OK, that’s an exaggeration but you get the picture.  It’s NOT a village!

Studies show that people who have close networks of friends and family who genuinely care about them are the healthiest. A social support network isn’t just a practical benefit, it actually strengthens your immune system, improves your mental health and makes you less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol.  It probably makes you smarter and happier too (the study didn’t actually address those but it seems likely to me).

We do have a support network of sorts.  We have some special friends who do care – like our good friend Lu who came to my daughter’s basketball games and cheered her on with a piercing whistle and who remembers and celebrates the kids’ birthdays.  And Naomi, our school secretary who has a soft spot for my son and who cheers him on and treats him like her own son.  And families who invite the kids over for sleepovers giving us all a break.  We have special neighbors right next to us – we help each other out – jumping dead batteries, watching kids for an hour or two, lending money when someone is a little short and just needs a 20 for gas.  We have family who care from afar and distant friends who stay in touch via the internet.  And we have some very kind and caring blog readers who send messages of encouragement and support (and sometimes hire me to do some writing or editing).  Our little support network has been our lifeline from time to time but it’s like a spider web that is stretched thin and a bit frayed so we are currently considering ways to strengthen it and ways in which we too can be a better support to others.  After all, as the song says – “We all need somebody to lean on.”

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Please Sir, I Want Some More

January 28, 2012 in compassion, Food, Hunger, poverty, recession, Uncategorized by boxcarkids | 37 comments

Some half dozen years ago I spent the better part of a day volunteering at a local soup kitchen/food pantry on the weekend before Thanksgiving.  There’s something about the holiday season that heightens my desire to care for strangers and this was a perfect opportunity for a busy single mom of 2.  A friend who admired my initiative but didn’t share the same commitment was happy to take my daughters for the afternoon so I donned my work clothes – jeans and a sweatshirt - and a feeling of benevolence, and headed off to dole out charity.

The first hour or so was spent sorting food that had been donated – mostly canned goods, bags of pasta and rice, but also loaves of day old bread, and produce; heads of wilted lettuce and limp bundles of carrots.  There were dented cans, food that was past the expiration date, and foods clearly given more as a means of cleaning out the pantry than to provide a meal for the hungry.  Cans of sauerkraut, pearl onions, gravy, and surprisingly (given that Thanksgiving was still to come) cranberry sauce.  The only meat I saw that wasn’t in a can of soup, was a can of Spam.

As we packed the food into paper grocery bags, a more experienced worker gave us tips.  “Put the generic veggie cans and odd stuff on the bottom,” she said, “then rice, bread or pasta and produce.  Try to top it off with something appealing if you can – like this.”  She handed me a box of Frosted Flakes cereal.  Naturally there was no dairy, nothing that needed to be refrigerated or frozen.

Once the bags were filled we were directed to the kitchen to help prepare the ‘Thanksgiving’ Meal.  This was a lot closer to the meal I would be having the following week – it was ham instead of turkey, but the other fixings were much the same.  Mashed potatoes, peas, dinner rolls, salad, and pumpkin or apple pie for desert.  We peeled mountains of potatoes, chopped lettuce, opened industrial-sized cans of peas and heated rolls.  It was an assembly line effort and we were hurried along by bustling workers who warned us of the growing lines forming outside the doors.

Eventually the food was ready, tables were set and the doors were opened.  The people filed through and lined up cafeteria style to receive a plate filled with a hot meal.  There were older homeless men who shuffled through silently, maintaining a tight grip on their soiled backpacks.  There were migrant workers, darkly tanned and hardened by hours standing and bending and lifting in the sun.  There were families – not so many (this was before the recession) but a few.  Children so eager, eyes alight, tummies rumbling, reaching for their plates.  Parents with downcast gazes, hurrying the children through the line, hating the need to be there at all, mumbling their thanks.

We dished out over 100 meals that afternoon, and gave each adult one of the grocery sacks packed with food that we wouldn’t take home and serve to our own families because it wasn’t our brand, or was too old or unpalatable in other ways.  We were brightly cheery in the presence of the needy, proud that we had taken the time to come and serve them.  We accepted their gratitude as our due and frowned at the child who had a tantrum and refused to eat her peas, instead shoving her entire plate to the floor.  We murmured among ourselves, wondering what led people to make a life on the street instead of getting a job and living a ‘normal’ life.  Drug use?  Lack of education?  Lack of drive?  We couldn’t imagine it.

Yesterday I stood in line at the biweekly food pantry at a local church.  Ahead of me were other single adults, an elderly lady white-haired and hunched over, a man who limped along with the aid of a cane, and a woman about my age, nicely dressed in a colorful skirt and blouse.  Behind me a young mother tried to keep her toddler son entertained as the line edged slowly forward.  Most of us moved forward silently, keeping eye contact and conversation to a minimum. At the head of the line was a small card table, manned by several nicely dressed and groomed middle-aged volunteers.

They politely asked each person their circumstance and the number and ages of the people in their household before handing out a little green ticket that afforded one entrance into the part of the parking lot that housed the food.  Tables laden with sacks of paper grocery bags, bins filled with local produced rejected by the stores, and another table stacked with loaves of bread.  I handed over my green ticket and took the grocery sack I was offered.  A box of Frosted Flakes peeked over the edge, resting on a head of limp lettuce.  I declined the offer of extra cabbage and carried my bag to the car where I pushed aside the cereal and produce and reaching in, pulled out one of the cans.  Cranberry sauce.

I took the bag home, put away the food and made two tuna fish sandwiches.  These I took to the homeless man who was squatting outside in the bushes, leaning against the wall that surrounds our mobile home park.  I put the cranberry sauce aside for the next food drive at the kids’ school.

Multi-tasking Madness

November 15, 2011 in back to school, blogging, compassion, job search by boxcarkids | 10 comments

I suppose it is possible to cobble together a living doing all sorts of odd jobs but I must say it cannot be easy, nor is it an efficient use of one’s time!  At one time my life was more or less neatly segmented- so many hours working at an office, so many hours at home doing family stuff with the occasional oddity – vacation, accident/emergency, surprise visit by an old friend – scattered amongst the order.  Now there is very little order or routine.

I’m helping two people with their eBay auctions and thus am at their beck and call to some degree.  Neither is particularly organized at this point so I spend a lot of time troubleshooting issues with eBay, UPS, paypal, etc., and schlepping packages to the post office. This effort should net me around $400 this month.

I’m doing a few small writing/editing jobs; one fairly cut and dried, the other full of last minute interim deadlines that weren’t mentioned originally.  That’s another $193 (minus the money I’ve spent acquiring reference materials).

And I’m knitting cat beds (4 down, working on the 5th, a special order now).  $50 so far (minus yarn cost) but I haven’t made much of an effort to sell them yet as I’m trying to work up some inventory/choices first.

I’m taking online classes in child nutrition, fitting them in when I can, in order to be a more viable candidate for the Assistant Director of Child Nutrition position that I will apply for by noon on Friday.  I’m also crafting a very creative cover letter that will purport to explain why even though I have NO actual experience doing the job I’m applying for I’m still a good fit due to my wealth of management experience.

Oh, and I’m still applying for any and all jobs – most recently as an executive recruiter, an administrative assistant, a salesperson at a department store, and a part-time receptionist/call center employee.   No one has called in response to these applications.

I’m filling out various forms for financial aid (too late for many it appears) in order that I might enroll in the Medical Assisting course in January, and responding to repeated requests for additional information from the food stamp people – they need to know every last asset one might be able to convert to cash – including burial insurance – before they’ll release any benefits.  Good thing my life insurance can’t be cashed while I’m alive!

I’m juggling the kids’ activities (car wash and Christmas wreath sales fundraisers for beginning band), volunteering the the classroom (two days of archaeology workshops for 2nd and 3rd graders), and trying to keep up with homework.  This week is parent-teacher conferences for the younger two – the older two already brought home their report cards (all As) for the 1st quarter.

And I’m visiting my friend Tricia at the nursing home, less often than I should and with mixed feelings each time.  She is not very responsive and seems angry and withdrawn so I often wonder whether my visits are at all beneficial.  Her husband appreciates it though.  I sit and read passages from the bible to her, skipping around, looking for words of comfort.  I rub lotion into her dry, thin arms and hands and chatter on about the kids and the weather.  I’m not sure what sort of conversation I should embark on and feel awkward everytime I slip and say something like “How are you feeling today?” When I leave I invariably seek out a resident who looks eager for some conversation and company and happily push them around the halls or spend 15 minutes just talking to them.  It’s completely selfish of me.  It’s the only way I can leave with a good feeling.

No wonder blogging is taking a back seat.

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