One of the things I really like about my job is the number of people I get to meet and talk to. Not only talk to, but many share part of their life story in very personal ways that you don't typically get to hear.
Recently, I was talking with a lady as I was working with her. She was a tiny older lady (as in she can claim more years to her life than she can claim pounds on her body). My initial impression was a sweet little lady. However, there seemed to be a resolve or a toughness just beneath the surface. The conversation was mainly how she wants to get stronger (by doing therapy) so she can return to all of her activities and social events. Imperceptibly, the conversation took a turn. She started to talk about how she was not always so social. That she was frequently teased in junior high and high school and always walked with her head down and shoulders slumped with very little respect for herself. After high school she got married and had 7 kids. Never working outside of the home and pretty much just sticking to the house. Not having many friends or interacting with many people outside of her husband and kids. Then one day, her husband called during his lunch. He told her he was tired of his life and was no longer coming home, she did not see it coming. And he never did. She said that day, she wanted to walk down the middle of a road and get hit by a car, or curl up and die. She had no friends. And now she was the single mom of 7. She very shortly was going to have bills to pay, no work experience, and no job. She said that night she didn't know what she was going to do, she just wanted to die. However, for some reason she said she couldn't even verbalize all of these years later, she woke up with the determination she was going to make it. She was going to do right by her kids and show them what can be made of. She did not want to run into her husband and give him the idea that he had beat them down. Personally, if it was just her, she would have liked to curl up and die, but she said that she couldn't do that to her kids. She got a job. That at some point turned into a career that lead her to a bachelor's degree. She wanted her kids to have more of a support system than she originally had. So she started going to church more. Then other community events. She said in those early years, there were days and weeks she still did not want to live. However, she wanted to do right by her kids. So she got up and did what needed to be done. And slowly, she found herself living and loving a very extroverted social life. The days, and weeks, and years she would dress and hold herself in a manner that if she ran into her ex-husband, he would not see a broken woman that she felt she was, she somehow became that person.
The idea of raising 7 kids alone impresses me. It had to have been hard, doing the math, it had to be in the 50's or 60's this happened. The American culture was not nearly as accepting of divorce singles moms as it is today. On the days I find it hard to drag myself out of bed for whatever reason, on the days I just don't seem to have enough time to get everything done... she had to have had that with several magnifications. She got herself out of bed, and pulled up on her boot straps. And somehow got herself father than she ever imagined. And gave those of us who know her and her story a true role model to look up to. She just did it.
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