Sometimes even the smallest things leave me feeling overwhelmed.
Monday, I went out to get a haircut. When I came up the stairs, I remembered how Jane would look at me after a haircut and croon “so cute” in my direction. The memory left me in tears and left me paralyzed for most of the rest of the day.
Yesterday, after I mowed the lawn, I took on pruning the azaleas in front to the house. That was one of Jane’s jobs. Last summer, I had not been able to face the task at all, so this year they were way out of shape. Three hours later…well, let’s just say the job is done but the plants are not the perfect globes she would have wanted. And there is more pruning to do all over the yard.
Dealing with people can also overwhelm me. It wasn’t that way before Jane got sick–but it very clearly is now. I can still run a meeting. I can still talk to individuals. But it requires a significant act of will to initiate anything involving direct, face-to-face contact other people. Even making phone calls is tough. Once I am there, I’m fine–but getting there…
Now given all of that, I have to wonder about my chances of success in this much larger endeavor called Walking with Jane, Inc. I have all these ideas but no clue how to make them real. Every one of those ideas requires help from lots of different people. I have trouble starting conversations with people I know–and suddenly I am talking about bringing all of this NET stuff up with strangers.
As I was pruning yesterday, I got to thinking, too, about the Three Million March. Who on Earth am I to think of such a thing? Why would anyone think for a single moment to attempt such a thing–let alone try to get other people to try to help?
But then I think about Jane at the end. I look into the faces of the people at the conference on NET I was at on Friday. I know that they are headed for that same ending Jane went through. Their spouses are headed for the same emptiness and helplessness that I experienced then and now. If someone had said something–if someone had done something…
People did. There were not enough of them. But they tried.
Regardless how overwhelmed I feel, I’ll keep trying. And I’ll keep trying to get you to try, too.
I owe that to Jane. We owe that to all those people out there who know they have this disease–and all the ones who don’t.
