(DUer Redstone passed away ten years ago, but I still remember this essay he used to post around this time each year. I am resharing it in his memory so that anyone who needs hope and inspiration can find it in his words. - FireUpChips10)
To the lovelorn, and the lost, and the suffering, and the lonely during this holiday season,
listen to me now:
Although you may feel that you have nothing, trust me that we all of us, including you, do have something if we only look to find it; and keep that thought in your heart to cheer you through these days and the days to come.
Whatever your situation, you still can have faith. Faith not perhaps in the religious sense, but rather in the confidence that the characteristics of the good that you possess, whether it be empathy for others, a commitment to better the world, or just the fact that you've made another person's life a little bit better by being there; this faith can sustain you.
And yet more important, you can find hope, and hope will never abandon you if you allow it to live in your heart. Hope will sustain you through the dark days and years, and will reward you in the end for keeping it quietly within you. Have hope, and you will persevere. Have hope, and your perseverance will be its own reward. No matter the final outcome, you will be the better for having persevered; the struggle is engendered with its own nobility and worth.
Charity, much like faith and hope, rewards and honors both the giver and the recipient. If you feel that your life is not as it should be, do please sacrifice just one day to volunteer in a soup kitchen. The gratitude expressed by those who are genuinely less fortunate than you, unless you are of granite heart, will provide an invaluable lesson in perspective.
And if you are so unfortunate that you find yourself in the necessity of being a client at a soup kitchen, note the generosity of the volunteers who do not go to work there for any profit to themselves, but rather out of a genuine desire to make some small part of your life better, for only one simple reason: Because they care. Make a vow then, if you will, that when your station in life rises above its current level, that you will pass their generosity along to others who may then be where you were today, there in that soup kitchen.
Faith and hope are nutrition for the soul, and charity is its own reward.
If you wonder why I write this tonight, it's this: Whoever you are, I have been you.
I have known poverty. I remember the taste of Government Surplus food. I have known the shame of walking to school in the morning, knowing that my patched and mended clothes would be noticed and remarked upon. I have known adult poverty as well, hoping that the fifty dollars I squirreled away for my son's Christmas presents would be enough that he'd be happy on Christmas morning.
I have worked the crappy, dead-end jobs: Driven the taxi, endured the 100-degree temperature while nailing shingles to the roof, sweated in the cardboard-box factory for small wages and less respect.
I have known pain and sickness, being at the very brink of death at the ages of fourteen, nineteen, and again at twenty-four; each time with the calm acceptance of the inevitable followed by the amazement of survival. And the shadows of those events stalk me even now, so long after. To this day, my first awareness each morning upon awakening, and my last awareness each night upon falling asleep, is of pain. And that will never change. Ever.
I have known heartache, losing loved ones far too early, surviving an inadvisable marriage to a woman afflicted with mental illnesses which she would not even acknowledge, much less seek treatment for, and bore the brunt every day of her rage and incapacity for rational thought. I took the beatings for over four years, for the sake of my son, and went through a hideous divorce that depleted every financial resource I had built, including every cent of my retirement account, to ensure that my son would not have to suffer his mother's madness further as he grew up.
I tell you this not to ask for sympathy, because I deserve none. I have a wonderful life now, and nothing to complain about. I am, truly, one of the fortunate ones, and not a single day passes that I do not remind myself of that. Rather, I tell you these true stories so you may understand that it is the truth when I say, I have been you.
I have been where you are, there on the brink of despair.
But I had faith.
I never lost hope.
And on those Thanksgiving and Christmas days when I was alone and missing my son and the rest of my family, I worked at the soup kitchen, and returned home more content than I would have been if I had spent the day in self-pity. Charity healed me, in the giving of it.
So listen to me, please, because I've been where you are: Have faith. Do not give up hope.
If depression wraps you in its malignant cloak, yell for help and do it now. Depression is not anything to be ashamed of; if your knee hurt, you'd go to the knee doctor, wouldn't you? So if your mind is in pain, visit someone who knows about helping people's minds feel better. Please.
And, in the end, no matter how lonely you may feel, remember this: Because you are a DUer, you are never alone.
You're one of us.
Your participation makes you a part of this wonderful community, and somebody will be here for you whenever you need someone to be. Trust me on this. I have not the slightest doubt that, were I in need, even the DUers with whom I have had the most bitter disagreements would rush to my aid.
I believe this. I do. Because I've seen it happen here.
If even one of you finds even a small comfort from this post, I will consider the words to have been well worth writing.
Do not lose faith. Have hope. Give charity if you can, or accept it if you need.
And above all, be at peace. With yourself most of all, and with the world as well, as much as you can.
That's my holiday wish for all.
Redstone
