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MY STORY by Jackie Waldman

I SEEMED TO BE LEADING A CHARMED LIFE.

At age fourteen, I had a date with a handsome guy named Steve. He took me to a Dallas Chaparrals basketball game and then to the lake where all the couples went. He took a blanket and a guitar out of the trunk of his car. And as we sat at the edge of the still water under a moonlit sky, that fifteen-year-old boy sang the most beautiful songs in the world to me, revealing his gentle soul. I knew at that moment I had met my soulmate.

Steve and I married six years later, in our senior year of college. Our parents supported us while we finished our studies, and our storybook romance continued. After college, we established ourselves in Dallas, where Steve joined his family's business. I worked as a special education teacher, but later resigned to stay at home with our three children, Melissa, Todd, and Michael. My life was filled with soccer games, gymnastics, school plays, friends, family gatherings, and the athletics that were always so important to me. I went to aerobics class every day, sometimes twice a day, and jogged three to five miles a day. In my tennis league, my nickname was “Billie Jean.”

As the kids got older, I started my own business. I got the idea from a girl I met on the beach while I was in Hawaii with Steve on a business trip. She was making hair bows and taught me how to make a simple bow, too. For the rest of the vacation, she and I spent every morning on the beach in Maui making bows while our husbands were in meetings.

I bought ribbon and wire and made bows during the long flight home. When an airline attendant asked if she could buy a couple of bows for her daughter, I told her, “No way. Here, take these.” She explained it was against airline regulation to accept free gifts, so we agreed on $5 per bow. My hair accessory business, Bow Jangles, was born.

And it grew. My competitive nature, which drove my love for athletics, drove me in business, too. Before long, I had twenty-five employees and twenty-five sales reps across the country. We were in every major department store and hundreds of small boutiques. During the Gulf War, we made and sold thousands of red, white, and blue bows.

I made it a point to hire Russian immigrants—teachers, scientists, engineers— who needed to learn English before they could practice their professions in this country. We all worked together in one big room. To help them with their English, everyone spoke only English while working. But on their breaks, they were free to speak Russian. We always celebrated when one of these new Americans learned enough English to quit Bow Jangles and get back to their chosen career.

When I started my business, it was fun and more fun. But as it grew and became more successful, it also became more stressful. Before I knew it, I was getting to the office at 6:30 A.M. every morning in my attempt to run a growing business while maintaining quality family life.

It was around that time that I started having a strange tingling sensation around my waist. At first, I thought I was just imagining it. Then I attributed it to stress. Then I attributed it to some back surgery I had had years earlier.

But when the tingling progressed down my legs to my toes, and my legs became numb, I went to the doctor. After examining me, he told me to see a neurologist immediately.

The neurologist, a friend of ours, hospitalized me that day. I had MRIs of my upper and lower spine and brain. The next day, they did a spinal tap. I'll never forget lying on my stomach, with a needle in my spine, hearing one nurse whisper to another, “What are they testing for?”

The other nurse answered, “Multiple sclerosis.”

I lifted my head and asked, “Is that what ‘Jerry's Kids’ have?”

The nurses were embarrassed that I had overheard them, and they quickly reassured me it wasn't. But, at that point I knew this was serious.

On July 12, 1991—I'll never forget that day—the doctor walked into my room and told me and Steve that I had multiple sclerosis. Even the doctor seemed sad.

He explained that nerves have a coating around them made of myelin, kind of the way telephone wires are wrapped in insulation. When telephone insulation is torn, the message we hear in the phone sounds garbled. Similarly, when myelin is torn or destroyed, messages can't flow smoothly along the nerves. And that's what my problem was. The MRI of my brain showed scars where the myelin had been destroyed. That's why my legs weren't functioning. He suggested several doctors who specialized in MS.

Steve and I held each other and cried. We were so frightened. Through my tears, I told him how sorry I was. Through his tears, he told me to quit apologizing. He told me we'd get through this together.

We chose a doctor, and he came to visit that same day I will always remember his kind and gentle manner. After reassuring me I wasn't going to die, he told me that even though my legs were numb then, that didn't mean they would be numb forever.

He explained that MS is an autoimmune disease—meaning that the body attacks itself—that is unpredictable. Some people have an attack and return to normal. Some have an attack and are left with some damage. Others get steadily worse. Each person's MS is unique, depending on where the myelin is destroyed.

As the doctor explained it, our first priority was to halt this attack. We tried intravenous steroids first, but that didn't help. Then we tried chemotherapy. With that, some feeling returned to my legs. I was so excited. The doctor allowed me to go home and have the next two rounds of chemo at home with visiting nurses.

At home, I had to face my children, who were in middle school and high school at the time. I told each of them separately that I would not die from this and that it wasn't hereditary. I promised them nothing would change.

But of course, everything did change.

After I finished chemo and got my strength back, I assumed I would be fine. I tried to ignore the overwhelming fatigue I felt on a daily basis. I pushed myself forward, believing that if I just tried hard enough, I would beat this disease—even though I had read there was no known cure.

One day when Steve and the kids were gone, I got on the treadmill and fastwalked three miles. Sweat poured out of me triumphantly. I was so excited to be able to exercise so well again. I told myself I was feeling normal. Everything would be fine. But after I cooled down, I had to sleep for four hours.

Rabbis from our synagogue called and offered to come visit. I laughed and told them they didn't need to waste their time with me—they needed to spend time with someone who really needed them.

Looking back, I realize I was in complete denial—big time denial.

When I finally quit denying that I had a serious illness, I became very angry. Why me? Why was God punishing me? What had I done so wrong? Did I get this disease as payback for the fact that my life had gone so well? That things had come easily for me? How fair is this?

I asked these angry questions over and over and over. They went through my mind continuously. I wasn't really looking for any answers. I was just asking out of anger.

As part of my anger, I resented any happiness I saw around me. When Steve played the piano and the kids laughed and sang with him, it made me angry. When Steve came home, whistling while he cleaned the dinner dishes, and then helped the kids with homework after working all day, it made me angry. The more he did without ever complaining, the angrier I became.

How could they have fun? Didn't they know how much pain I was in? But as soon as those questions came into my mind, I would immediately feel guilty for wanting anything but happiness for the people I loved.

In 1992, because I wasn't able to work full-time anymore, I had to close my business and sell all the inventory.

I had ruined an absolutely perfect life.

Steve didn't bargain for this, I told myself over and over. Instead of wasting his time with me, he could be with an energetic, vibrant woman. Before I got sick, we loved to dance. But afterward, my legs were so weak I could barely walk without getting tired. If we did go out to a party, we never danced and we always left early. I kept thinking that he would be better off without me and that maybe I should just let him off the hook.

All day long, terrible thoughts ran through my mind. Why doesn't Steve care about the pain and turmoil I'm in? Why does he keep telling me he loves me and that my MS doesn't matter to him? What if I have to come down the aisle at my daughter's wedding in a wheelchair? What if my family is just pretending to still love me? When they were alone with their thoughts, did my children resent me?

I tried to get rid of these questions by looking everywhere for a cure for MS. I knew that cure was out there. It had to be. So I made it my full-time business to find it.

I tried Chinese herbs, acupuncture, chiropractic, and protein diets. I traveled to Israel to become part of a trial study with a new drug. I'll never forget Steve meeting the drug company representative at the airport in the middle of the night. He carried the medicine home in a special container filled with dry ice. Things looked good for a few weeks, but my body rejected the drug within a month.

Throughout everything—and no matter what I was feeling inside—I outwardly maintained a positive, cheery appearance. I made sure MS was not the focus in our home. The kids’ schoolwork, outside interests, and social calendars never suffered. When friends called, I was “fine.” When family called, I was “fine.” If people offered help, I didn't need it.

I was even “fine” for Steve. I knew he felt my pain and devastation. But I couldn't bring myself to talk openly about my feelings with him. I didn't want to feel his pain. I just couldn't face it. I had enough of my own.

I did have one dear friend, Dee, who understood me almost better than I understood myself. She had two rocking chairs on her front porch, and we spent many, many hours just rocking and talking. I often thought how good it was those chairs couldn't talk—they knew way too much.

Dee never sympathized with me. She never judged my anger. Instead, she talked about Eastern religion and philosophy. And she talked about the book A Course in Miracles.

Many days Dee made me angry with her calm, peaceful manner. I was frustrated by her daily affirmations, her quest for inner peace, her belief in God as an encompassing Source of unconditional love within each of us. I told her the philosophy was easy for her to embrace—but just wait until she suffered in some way. And that's when she told me about her childhood, about growing up with an alcoholic single mom, about being on her own by the time she was seventeen, about having faith and choosing love.

I'd leave Dee's house thinking about how impressed I was with her courage. It didn't occur to me to think about how I could apply her philosophy to my life.

When the movie Schindler's List came out, Dee and I went to see it. After the movie, we rocked on her porch and talked about how one person's kind act could make such a difference. By not giving in to the Nazis, Oskar Schindler saved 1,000 lives and, indirectly, all the future generations that would be born to those people.

As Dee and I talked about the power of Schindler's kind acts, we began to brainstorm the idea of a week in Dallas celebrating the value of kindness as part of the National Random Acts of Kindness™ Month. And we decided to turn those ideas into reality. We asked Jim McCormick, a well-respected businessman in Dallas, to be the chair.

The week of February 7-14, 1995 was a miracle. Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King III, W. Deen Mohammed, and Dennis Weaver came to Dallas and spoke at kindness rallies, at schools, and at interfaith services. Under the guidance of Police Chief Ben Click, the Dallas Police Department handed out “kindness citations” that week.

We had a kindness rally for 10,000 school children. Girls from the YWCA handed out hot chocolate to downtown workers as they left their buildings; kids with learning differences made art exhibits depicting kindness; a kindness song, “We Believe,” was written; 800 Christian, Jewish, and Muslim children heard a Sunday School lesson taught together by Martin Luther King III and Dennis Weaver; children and adult choirs sang in malls; the African American Museum held a reception in honor of kindness; and Lovers Lane United Methodist Church hosted a fifty-year celebration of the liberation of the Nazi war camps.

Kindness was everywhere in the media—radio talk shows, television morning shows, the news, even on the front page of the Dallas Morning News. Billboards proclaiming kindness were everywhere.

And throughout all the planning and all the activities, Dee kept reminding me to watch the miracles, to see the love, to see God. And as tired as I was, I did feel a new energy. That's what kept me going.

When Kindness Week was over, I didn't want those good feelings to end. Since I wasn't working or doing athletics, I thought I might spend some time volunteering. So I called the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies and trained to become a docent.

Soon I was speaking to fifty middle school children each week when I took them on tours of the center. We stood in a boxcar—a real boxcar that had been used to transport Jews to the Nazi death camps, that had been donated to our museum—and I told them, “When you leave here, do not hate Nazis. Vow in your own heart never to be prejudiced. That's how you can make a difference.”

During each tour, when I told them about a particular survivor who lost his parents and brothers and sister, I always started to cry—it was the man who had founded this center so that could never happen again. I left the tour each week exhausted—but feeling new energy that I had discovered. And kids wrote me letters affirming that same feeling of hope and love.

For the very first time since my MS diagnosis, I was feeling someone else's pain and not thinking about myself.

I liked the way I was feeling. And so I took on more volunteer jobs. Within a year, I was serving on the boards of several schools, as co-vice president of community service of the National Council of Jewish Women, as our neighborhood March of Dimes volunteer—and the list goes on. I said Yes to everyone.

Right around that time, I happened into a used bookstore. An old copy of Wayne Dyer's book, Real Magic, caught my eye. I had never heard of Wayne Dyer, but the picture of the rainbow on the cover and the subtitle Creating Miracles in Everyday Life attracted me to the book. I grabbed it, paid for it, and went home.

I could not believe what I was reading. Everything I had been feeling since Kindness Week was written in this book. Dyer wrote of creating real magic in your life, which he describes as those times when we can see beyond the concrete five senses and know there is more. He wrote of going within and discovering that our purpose in life is to love unconditionally and to live a life of service. He spoke about life not being a “What's in it for me” experience, but being about our spiritual selves having a human experience.

He asked the reader to have an open mind when first learning about spirituality and to suspend disbelief. Then he talked about intuition, the divine spark within each of us that we can access whenever we choose. He suggested that readers go within and be quiet, to listen to the voice within. And he spoke about waking each day and being grateful for the smallest of things, to enjoy the journey instead of working only for an outcome. If we can do these things, miracles begin to occur.

I can only describe my experience of reading that book as an instant awakening. In one moment, every piece of my life became crystal clear. I knew that I had lived my life not seeing “real” magic. In that one moment, I knew without a doubt exactly who I was—not a person with a disease and weak legs, but a person who has a heart filled with love and wants to be of service.

I felt a lightness I had not felt in years. And my healing began.

At that point, I understood that my healing isn't about searching for the cure to multiple sclerosis. There is no cure for MS. My healing is about healing within. It's about being motivated by ethics, serenity, and quality of life—not achievement, performance, and acquisitions.

And I suddenly knew loving guidance was always available to me. All I had to do was ask. I have never felt alone again. I knew my purpose was to serve others—that's why my service work always gave me new energy.

About a year later, I said, “God, OK, I'm really stretched. I keep saying ‘Yes’ to everyone. I promise I'll say ‘Yes’ to whatever YOU ask me to do. What's next?”

Less than a week later, I woke up and looked at Steve. “OK, I got my marching orders. I'm writing a book, and I've been told exactly what it is about. It's about people who have suffered physical or emotional pain, and gone beyond their own pain to help someone else. I need to interview them and write their stories.”

From February through May I did preliminary research. I sent a short proposal to Danny Siegel, author, poet, and the king of finding community service heroes. He called me and told me he would help me. God bless Danny Siegel. He told me about Bea Salazar. I interviewed Bea and wrote and rewrote her story. In July I knew I needed a professional writer to make this work.

It had always been a dream of mine to write a book, but I decided this idea was too righteous to waste time on learning how to write. I thought about calling Janis Dworkis, an acquaintance and local writer, but I really was not sure. Then one day I opened the phone book, and the header on the right-hand page said “Dworkis.” I smiled and immediately called her.

Janis came on board July 20, the day before my birthday. I never liked celebrating my birthday. But, this year I had reason to celebrate. I was living with purpose.

I interviewed Jonni McCuin and Ben Beltzer. We wrote their stories and finished the proposal. We mailed it to three publishers in October. Three weeks later Mary Jane Ryan called from Conari Press. She told me they wanted to publish our book.

After crying—and trying to sound somewhat coherent—I hung up the phone and sat very still. I thanked God for the miracle, for giving me this incredible gift to share with the world. I laughed at the synchronicity—of course the publisher would be the same group that published all of the Random Acts of Kindness™ books.

From October to December I interviewed all thirty people, and Janis and I wrote their stories. Each day, as I spoke with the folks we profiled here, I learned a new lesson. Their strength, kindness, and inspiration fed my soul. They gave me the energy to finish an entire manuscript within weeks.

Meeting thirty new friends who have endured incredible pain, yet are reaching out and helping so many others, reminds me daily of the miracles of life.

Recently I found a newspaper clipping featuring me as a child with two other children. It was in the Dallas Times Herald, in 1956.I was four years old. The caption reads, “Socks Away—three tiny members of Temple Emanu-El sort through 563 pairs of socks they and fellow church school members have collected for the City-County Department of Public Welfare to give needy youngsters at Christmas. The children gave socks to the program in place of exchanging Chanukah gifts among themselves.”

I cried looking at the joy and love in my little face. At four years old, I had known the peace and joy of service to others. But for so many years, I had forgotten the truth of that little girl. I cried tears of gratitude for the gift of remembering who I really am.

I cried for the miracle of life, for the chance I and we all have been given to offer our unique gifts to the world, gifts born, so often, from our very woundedness.

So now, I invite you to meet my thirty new friends. These are special people—all of whom continue to teach me a lesson I had once known long ago, but had forgotten. These wonderful people have the courage we all need, the courage to see beyond. The admiration and love I feel in my heart for each of them will stay with me always. Their stories have changed me, as I hope they will change you.

I thank God for showing me the way. And I thank these people for revealing their stories to all of us.