Why can’t the bad parts of life just be spread out evenly between everyone?
I’ve just been thinking about this a lot tonight. One of my best friends, let’s call him Mark, has had the hardest life out of anyone I know. I won’t even begin to get into his early childhood. It was horrible.His family is so poor it’s heart-breaking. They can’t afford the things we take for granted. They have absolutely no form of transportation. They don’t have good heating in the winter. He never was the best student, but now his grades are suffering even more because he’s gotten a job to help with expenses. He’s only 16 and lives with his grandma. Now his grandma has been diagnosed with Perkinson’s Disease (I think) and is dying.
Why should someone so very young have to deal with all this? I know it doesn’t sound as bad as it is with the little detail I’ve given, so you’ll have to trust me. I just want to know why one of the most wonderful people in my life has had it so hard, and I’ve had it so easy. If I could take some of his burden as my own I would do it in a New York minute. There must be so many more people like him in the world, and so many more people with such easy lives like mine. Why is it so unfair like that? I wish everyone with an easy life could just share a little of the burden of their friends. Heck, not even their friends, just everyone. But it really can’t happen that way. That can’t happen and I know it. Life is life and it will always be unfair. I can’t stand the injustice of it and the pain one of my best friends is going through. I love him so much and he deserves so much better.
Thank you for listening to me. I just needed to vent my feelings about it to a neutral party. I can’t let him see just how much I’m suffering for him. He needs me to be strong right now.
‘Cause life ain’t fair, bo’.
Whenever I feel sorry for myself and get all teary and whiney (which is pretty damn often, I must admit), I just tell myself, “Well, at least I’m not working in a factory making little straw hats for horses,” or, “Hey—I’m not a 14th-century Russian serf or a patient in an 18th-century snake-pit looney bin!”
It’s all a toss of the dice, and most of us here are pretty fucking lucky.
And sometimes being strong is sitting down with a friend and crying, and allowing that friend to see how much you really do care, and that it is all right for him to do the same. I don’t know about this particular situation, so maybe that doesn’t fit for this time.
My warm thoughts and wishes are with you and your friend, and I’m sure from many others on the board.
And as for what Eve said, I think I need to remind myself of that sometimes also, that I can be warm in the winter, and in a previous century, I would have not survived my childhood. Puts everything in a different perspective. Thanks, Eve.
Thank you very much for your support, Eve and Spider Woman.
I’m going to visit Mark tonight. I’ve invited him to Christmas dinner with my family. I hope I can make Christmas just a little bit merrier for him and his grandma.
Crispy
A few years ago, my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I moved home to care for her, and this meant that in the middle of the night, we were often awake together.
So this one night, after we had dealt with her needs, and she was settling back into sleep, I was watching her and trying to deal with the fact that she was going to be leaving me soon. I adored my mother.
So, I was sitting there watching her, and crying. She woke up again, and saw my tears. She said “Why are you crying, honey?” I told her that I loved her, and that I didn’t know how I was going to go on without her. You know what she said?
“Oh, my love…don’t cry. You know, there is always someone worse off than you are.”
So here is this woman, dying. And she is telling me that there is always someone worse off than you are. At the time, I didn’t know what to say. Because I felt that there was NO ONE worse off than me.
But you know what? She was right. My mother had the life that she wanted to have. She had a husband who adored her, children who worshiped the ground she walked on, and a faith in God that I envy. Many people die uncared for, alone and unloved. My mother knew what she had, and she appreciated every bit of it. I was blessed to have her in my life, and I thank God every day that I had her in my life as long as I did.
I am sorry that your friend has had such a bad time, but at least he has a friend who loves him. I believe that this is priceless, and I would bet that he feels the same way.
Sometimes things don’t seem fair. Often things AREN’T fair. But if someone loves you, you can get through the worst of times BECAUSE YOU AREN’T ALONE.
You are a gift to your friend, a gift from God. Cherish that, as I am sure he does. Sometimes the bad things in life make you stronger, make it possible for you to be a better person. I pray that your friend will find that this is so.
((((Crispy and friend)))
Scotti
That’s a question for the philosophers to argue over methinks, but even at the nadir of my problems with my son and his father, I still found people around me who were worse off than I was.
Crispy, I think it’s wonderful that you’re looking after your friend and his grandma. Everyone needs someone like you in their life. 
Robin
Crispy…if anyone ever figured that out…
I had an eye-opening conversation about this whole subject with a girl who, at first glance, seemed to be worse off than I was at the time. I was in the midst of a nasty depression when my church did the annual Christmas party for a nearby orphanage. I was talking to an 12-year old girl whose father had left her when she was very young, and whose mother was a drug addict that had tried to sell her to buy more drugs. We started talking, and I asked her, “Do you ever consider yourself unlucky? Do you ever hear someone complain and think ‘why are they complaining, they have an easy life?’”
Her reply was this: “Not really. We all go through struggles. It’s like, when you’re a little kid, the problems you have seem so huge, but as you get older, you realize they weren’t really that bad. Everyone’s at a different stage of ‘growing up’ in the struggles they face. What’s hard for you to handle may not be so hard for me, and vice versa. Besides, I’m thankful for what I have. It could’ve been much worse.”
Later on, I read a quotation that I think she would’ve agreed with.
“Be kind to everyone you meet, for they are fighting a harder battle.”–Plato
I said ALL that to say this: Crispy, I think you’re a wonderful friend. I wish more people were like you.
Not so! There is something that you can do about it.
Firstly, you already are doing something by having your friend over for dinner on Christmas. That was really thoughtful of you. Please make sure to send him home with a huge plate of food for his grandmother too.
Second, everyone can make a difference, find a way to volunteer or share what you have with others. Since I love to cook I have spent Thanksgiving or Christmas at the local homeless shelter making sure that the food is the best that it can be. On another occasion I invited a dozen strangers from Cogswell Music College who were alone for Thanksgiving over to my house for dinner with all of the trimmings.
There is always something that you can do. Sadly, many people are unable to reach outside of themselves to make any sort of gesture. I shudder to think of what they see when they look in the mirror.
You’re doing just fine Crispy. Maybe you can plunk down for a small bouquet of flowers for your friend’s Grandma. Whatever you do, your heart is growing in ways that you will never regret.