Ashes to Ashes

So earlier this week, I was working on my taxes and found a disk amidst the box of paperwork that I had gotten free when I purchased some other software that was a free “will and other legal documents” disk.  So I popped it into my computer and it was awesome in that it asked you questions and then based on your answers put the information in “will format” so all you have to do is get it witnessed, notarized and voila..a will.  I suppose if I had a ton of money or a lot of property I would be more inclined to go the attorney route but for a simple will this was pretty great.  It also had the template for an Advanced Directive for medical and a “last wishes” guide where you could list and print out the instructions for your memorial when you die even as to who sings what, what’s in the bulletin, who the pallbearers should be, etc.  I was showing it to Joe when he awoke from his pre-work nap.  That morning, we had had a lengthy discussion about my “state of mind” that day being a particularly bad one for me in terms of stressing  about not being able to find a job and the end of my unemployment looming etc.  So to say I was a little down would be accurate.  I didn’t give it a lot of though until later that day, after Joe had gone to work, he called me and said he wanted to ask me something.  And what he asked was about my current state of mind because my mood combined with my excitement about doing my will and medical power of attorney combined to make him think I had plans to leave this world unexpectedly.   I felt bad when I realized how it must’ve looked to him and how I triggered his worry.  Sometimes, we do things without thinking about how others might interpret it.

I think that a lot of times we may say or do something that has no “ulterior motive” but to the person who we say it to or do it for they may not take it for what it is and instead spend a lot of time trying to figure out what someone meant by what they did or said.  Like a few weeks ago, Joe and I were invited to the home for dinner of a couple that he sees on a daily basis as they pass by his security desk.  Other than that daily hello, how are you interaction and a few times they had stopped to chat for a few minutes, he didn’t really know them. So when he came home one night and said that they had asked us over for dinner and he had told them yes pending talking to me, I spent the next few days before the “dinner” trying to figure out Why they had asked us to dinner.  There had to be an ulterior motive.  Did they want us to come over and then hit us with a “we have made a lot of money in this …..” you should become a distributor too type thing?  Or because they had told Joe where they went to Church were they going to “evangelize” to us?  And if they did invite us to Church was it because their Church was having a fill the pew day contest or something.  I say that because of a Church I heard about that had a contest of sorts and whoever brought in the most new members got to go on a mission trip for free.  Its sad really that I have become so cynical that it didn’t occur to me that maybe they just liked Joe and wanted to get to know him (and me) better.  We went to the dinner, my guard up, and when we left having been neither asked to sell anything or attend their church and instead had an evening of great food and conversation I was surprised. 

In the laundry room last week I met a lady that used to live in Muskogee and we started chatting and found that we had a lot in common, among it that we both are full time live in RVrs now having used to be in the own a nice home crowd.  She was talking about how difficult it had been for her when she realized that her “society” friends were appalled at how “low” she had stooped and pretty much stopped inviting her to any of their activities.  She had fallen from the “social realm” when she and her husband had decided after years of making (and losing) a lot of money that they wanted to cut their debt, get rid of all their “things” and just live a simple life.  Obviously, we bonded quickly because here was someone that understood my new way of living, my new way of thinking. When all that was stripped away, by choice in both our cases (ok well losing my job made a pretty big difference in our income level but even if I had my job still we were planning to do the RV thing and just sock away my income for future travel and retirement) all of the sudden we were looked at differently by society.   A few weeks ago I was attending Church and the pastor asked me how the RV life was going.  I said “awesome, we love it” and he said something about “we must be from Arkansas” implying that we were hillbillies because we live in a “trailer”.  I was really offended, and for days I stewed about his remark, even letting it sink in and thinking that maybe he was right and we should aspire to own a brick home or something.  Then I realized that his “prejudice” in that regard was just that. I am the same person regardless of whether I live in a tent or a mansion.  And it forced me to think about my own predjudices and the times in my life that I looked at someone differently because of their living situation, or their job, or their family history without really digging deeper to find the real person.  I think that maybe that’s why I admire and respected my mom so much.  Because she didn’t care where you lived, or who your family was or how much money you made or what job you had.  She was the type of person who would treat the janitor at the White House the same way she would treat the President.  And then it occurred to me that maybe his “dis” was not intended as such and he would probably be really surprised to know how I interpreted it.

I have new neighbors at the RV park.  The man came over and introduced himself to Joe and I a few days before his wife arrived from Canada.  Sadly, she is here to have chemotherapy because in Canada, where healthcare is free, there is a shortage of doctors and a waiting list for some procedures. So they came here for medical treatment for her cancer. I told him that if there was anything he needed to let me know.  And I meant it.  The next day,  he came over and said, LeeAnn, so many people have said those words but somehow I know you really mean it.  And I do need something.  And so I am now checking on their dog when they are away for long hours and glad to be of service.  Sure it makes me feel good to know I am helping, particularly since his wife is battling the cancer my own mother died from.  I see in this “gruff” old guy the same “fear and helplessness” that I saw in my dad when he realized that there was nothing he could do to change what the outcome would be.  He had no control ultimately over the cancer and whether or not it would respond to the treatment.  When I mentioned that I had new neighbors to a friend and that I was walking their dog her first question was “are they paying you cause that’s your time they are using.”  And when she learned that no, I wasn’t being paid she said well I’d be careful not to get too friendly,they’ll take advantage of you.  It made me sad that someone could be so cynical that  doing something for nothing was so “unusual.” 

And in the end, getting back to wills and dying and all that stuff……we all end up in the same place.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  As I sat at the Lent Service in the overwhelmingly beautiful church on Wednesday, where even in my Sunday best I felt underdressed because the majority of the people there were obviously wealthy and the one person who walked in in jeans looked very out of place…..I thought about the social boundaries each of us operate within.  There are people that are wealthy, that have all the things money can buy but who have lost their humility, there are people who are wealthy, that have all the things that money can buy who are the most genuine, generous, kind people you would ever know, there are poor people, who have very little but who have hearts of gold and there are poor people who have nothing and are bitter, angry people who hate the world around them.  And in the end, when its all said and done, none of the tangibles really matter. My will may not have pages and pages of who gets what because ultimately, other than a couple of quilts that have little monetary value and a couple of pieces of jewelry who have monetary value but have sentimental value that far outweighs that but I feel good about my legacy.

Every day I ask myself “what have I done to make this world a better place”  Most days there is nothing remarkable that stands out.  Have I treated others like I would want to be treated, have I looked beyond the physical and looked at the heart of those around me, have I reached out expecting nothing in return, have I forgiven those who may have hurt my feelings without even knowing it, have I made an effort to  listen to those around me even if I don’t agree with what they do or say sometimes, and mostly the answer is yes.  On a good day…..and then there are those days ever so often where I get in a Why me frame of mind and then it helps to look out my window and see my neighbor as she struggles up the steps of her RV because the Chemo has left her weak, or see the homeless man sleeping under the bridge along the path I walk, or see the line out the door of the drug testing/rehab facility that’s down the street from Joe’s work because it truly puts my life back in perspective for me. I’m truly blessed.