I Live I Breathe I Win

Yesterday I was in the doc’s office for a check-up and his receptionist handed me a piece of mail… “Oh and Carolyn, we need to get your new address.” I sighed and took the piece of mail and yes you guessed it… The thing read “Return to Sender”. Still… I must admit a sign of progress because at least it didn’t say I’m deceased this time.

I usually go to see this doctor twice a month but because I have to cut back spending, he’s going to get the backlash from my students who stopped music lessons (I’m always the first to go whether I’m teaching privately or in a school… never the athletic department… Are you sensing hostility? Yes? Continuing.) And on and on it goes like little black dominos falling one after the other. We move in synchronization affecting each other with what we cannot afford. The Temple household recently dropped our cable access to the minimum. Who needs to watch television when there are games to play and sights to see and books to read (and articles to write). But as we have done this and shared our change with others, they have followed suit and have cut their cable choices to minimum… There goes the cable company stung by loss of income. Where does it end? Well, it does end. I know this because I’ve lived through the pattern of loss before. Many times over.

Being married to a man who comes from a proud and well-to-do family is not always an easy thing, for him or for me. I asked my husband last night if I could talk about a most difficult time in our lives, and being the person that he is, he agreed. It is a story of work, a tale of recovery.

Hubby had been unemployed for eighteen months with a wife whose salary in no way was able to cover our debt. (Even the IRS agreed we had little, as they sent us a letter stating that the “IRS agrees that you have only $183.00 of taxable income.”) My husband had been recently violated and betrayed by a business partner who proved to have low character and few, if any, good ethics. In addition to unemployment, my husband was picking up the slack with and for many unhappy people who had also been violated by his partner; to say that Hubby was unhappy would hardly have covered it. Our four children continued to have lives of their own and, as children go, were weathering our misfortune as well as could be expected, while their father was carrying guilt that he had introduced a painful situation to his family… as if he felt that we should leave him and run for cover. At last a day came, in this entire travesty, when he was ready to hit the wall. My husband began to rant that this would never be over, that things would never be right, and he was so tired of it all.. And well he should have been! I recall a point when he walked out into our back yard alone, and there in the quiet of the morning his shoulders dropped as he looked up into heaven and he said, “Lord, my name is not Job.” It was deep loss to see him do that. I wanted God to give me something that would ease his pain. And God being God, did.

Later that same day as I sat playing solitaire on the living room floor, Hubby also sat, but in silence. He looked this way and that and sighed and then just kept peace. At last he announced that we would probably never have a normal life ever again. He didn’t think he would ever be a winner again. He said he felt a terrible burden for this treacherous mess. He was sure that this pain would never turn around and he doubted that he could keep up the trek to find a good job. I think he thought I was not listening, as I continued to play my card game on the living room rug, which irritated him… He looked down at me and said, “Why do you keep playing that ridiculous game! That form of solitaire no one ever wins.” Remember I said God covered me with an answer for him? Here it comes…

It is true the game I was playing was extremely difficult to win. Just at the moment he said I could never win, I won with all cards in one neatly stacked pile. Words came rolling out of my mouth as if I had no control: “I play this game because if you keep playing long enough eventually everybody, anybody can win. I just won. So will you. Yes, it’s exhausting, but you will keep going. You will keep doing what you know you have to do. These losses will pass and somehow we will all be fine. I don’t know how and neither do you. But we will win, we will rise up and eat manna.” (Well I didn’t really say eat manna but I was on a roll typing and lost control for a sec. It sounded good though, didn’t it?)

Hubby looked at me in astonishment. “Well, okay then.”

Shortly after that, on what was to be the one of the most difficult days of my life with more loss and suffering than I hope to ever know again, Hubby landed a job and began a new career. When I was at my weakest link, he rallied and moved into success like a college grad. He worked frequently fifteen-hour days while I kept our children loved and informed, and worked two jobs of my own.

As recovery ensued, exhaustion became our constant companion. We had no time for personal thought and recreation. We hung on the belief that we knew this too eventually would fade and pass. But fatigue, being what it is, each of us began to see our freedoms dropping like those dominos all lined up and ready to fall. With his new career, one freedom after another seemed to drop and hit the next one and drop and hit the next one; and so it went on and on. Recovery is not only a process; it is an event. It teases us that the finish line is almost in sight and when the finish eludes us, pain and soulful agony is the result to tired people.

Hubby and I rarely saw each other except to problem solve for the family or sleep. He had his work to focus on when all seemed just a hill away. (I had nothing but the thought that his life was my life and I was along for the ride. Comforting a spouse and keeping a family together is lonely work.) And so it was now I, who needed a dose of God’s discernment.

I knelt alone in my room to pray. And as I prayed, this picture came into my head… I saw of all things, those crazy dominos falling down in sequence, but then a large hand picking them all up again. I heard these words: What falls will rise up again. And then came a peaceful sensation that though I was not feeling well at the moment, I would soon be back on track. Yes, there is pain involved as we recover because this is life. For everyone, not just for the Temples. Stay the course.

I know that at this moment, life events may seem scary for many, as the economy in our country and life in general thrashes and twists this way and that. I’m here to tell you that it will pass. Keep playing life’s game of solitaire. It is more than the poker game a gambler once sang about in his song… “Know when to walk away; know when to run.” Instead, keep dealing out excellent effort and smiles and good thoughts as you are dished up disappointment; because if you stay the course and do the work, you are going to win! Remember the postal challenge I’ve been having? Progress! At least I am no longer dead, just without residence. Keep playing the game. Keep walking forward and looking up. Maybe all the good things in life do fall down in sequence but eventually if you hang tough, God will help you set them back up whether you recognize it or not.

May your life games be played with focus and community. We don’t have to know the details to understand that eventually we will win.

Best… Carolyn Thomas Temple

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