"Rescue"

My high school friend was cute, fun and smart – and attracted troubles like a magnet attracts nails.  We stayed friends after school, but at some point I’d had enough with the drama and lost touch.  She found me online after a lot of years, and I have to admit I paused to consider before answering her email.  I remembered her crazy husband and other stuff I’m not going to mention here.  I still cared about her.  I just wanted to keep my sanity.

It was a bad time in my life when she contacted me.  I was laid off and broke.  People kept telling me I was “too old” to get a job and nobody would hire me without a current employment, but I kept applying and wondering what I was going to do with myself if I couldn’t get work.

Sometimes what people need most is money.  I hear politicians saying stuff about welfare and food stamps, and one thing I know for sure is that none of those people know what it’s like to really be poor.  I understand welfare doesn’t teach people how to fend for themselves, but we need a place to live and food to eat before we can think about stuff like career advancement.

Even in my poverty, I knew I was better off than a lot of people.  I’m healthy, smart, educated, and able.  I have friends who gave me emotional and financial support when I needed it, and they provide living examples of how to get through difficult times.  It’s so much easier to keep going when you see the road you’re supposed to be on, and I have to think that it would be much more difficult if you’re stuck in the country or in the ghetto without those kinds of examples.

I know it’s supposed to be shameful to accept money from friends, but mine gave me some in ways I was able to accept, letting me keep my pride and keeping my head above water.  My highschool friend said I had helped her when she needed it and remembered things I hadn’t given a thought about since they happened, like giving her $50 so she could buy diapers and necessities.  That $50 was a long time ago.  I never regretted it or missed it even though it was quite a lot of money for both of us at the time.  It’s just something she needed and I had to give.  I didn’t give it to her for a payback with interest 30 years later.

We can give to some people and all they’ll do is take.  They’re bottomless pits, and they use a lot of emotional extortion to get what they want.  It isn’t helping to give to people like that, but there are so many people like I was at that time.  I desperately wanted help, didn’t know how to ask for it, or how to accept it when it came.  It was far easier for me to give that $50 back when.

My highschool friend thanked me for past favors I had forgotten about.  She gave me credit for sacrifices I made for others that I didn’t think anyone else ever noticed.  I didn’t do any of those things for a karmic rebound a few decades later, but it makes me think there’s a lot of truth in the saying “what goes around comes around”.  Maybe not in any of the ways we expect, but things have a way of working out.

I offered to pay her back when I had money again, but she said “no, just help someone else in the future.”  Excellent advice, and something I admire in another of my friends.  Let’s all spread some hope to people who need it.  I resolved to help others in ways that helps them back to their feet.  It’s hard to know how best to help, but sometimes the simplest answer is best, and sometimes it means money for diapers.


(BTW, my highschool friend straightened her life out and it's been a pleasure talking with her again.)