Some Days, We Are Living Our Worst Moments

Sometime in most lives (I would argue all lives), there is a worst.  That time when the burden of living outweighs your list of blessings.  Most of us have a fair amount of blessings, so when we crash, we’ve legitimately been troubled. At those times, we need to find a way up.

One of my “worsts” was tied up in my health.  I was a migraine patient at a time when doctors mostly thought we were making it up.  No drug helped, nor, oddly, did being told, “It is all in your head.” That was true even when a doctor was making the statement. It was, indeed, all in my head, but not the way the Emergency Room doctors thought.  I had tried everything I could think of, and everything others thought of, to no avail. My head was on fire most of the time.

I still had to function, of course, as people who are hurting must do.  The three children, husband, job, house, etc. do not go away because you are in pain.  And even though I tried to advocate for myself—I would not be parked on a gurney in a fluorescent lit hall waiting for treatment, nor would I take a drug that I knew didn’t help. I also participated in the drugs I was given, often casting a jaded eye at serious medicine that actually offered no relief. My daughter, who was in pharmacy school, once gave a pharmacist the drugs I was prescribed and asked how the patient was doing.  He said, “That patient is dead.” My research had shown the same thing, so I was not dead, but I did still have a head of unrelenting pain.  One night, I surprised everyone when I walked out of the Emergency Room because I was screamed at by a nurse. She and hospital later admitted there was no cause, and they changed their treatment protocols to keep it from happening to someone else.  

Finally, there was the worst night of all nights.  Coping is often like a cup.  You fill your cup with your stresses.  When your cup is three quarters full because of intense pain, you do not have much room left. I broke.  Help did not seem likely and living and hurting was more than I could manage.  I prayed for help, not having any idea what that would look like.  Help came, but not in the way anyone would have expected.  I was sitting on the foot of my bed with my head in my hands and the phone rang.  Someone called up the stairs that it was for me. 

Logically, I should have passed on taking the call.  Why I did not is a puzzle.  I was in what we called the Master Bedroom.  It was an old house, built by a German carpenter during World War II. Our part was a dormer on the back for the bed and built-in closets with drawers under the eaves and on the other side. There were two built-in desks, and around the chimney, Mr. Rugenstein had put a circular shelf that held our phone and television.  Without the lights, it was all shadows at odd angles.  I climbed off the bed and answered the phone.

It was a friend I hadn’t heard from for a long time, and I wondered that prayer would suddenly bring her into my life.  She said her neighbor had a college-aged student and the girl was in trouble.  She was in school on an English scholarship and was in danger of losing it.  She and her teacher did not see eye to eye.  He said she was not “showing” him her stories through her writing, she was “telling” him.  He was displeased; she was panicked.  Could I, my friend asked, help with an assignment?  I rubbed my face and said we could make an appointment. She said it was due the next day, could she read it to me and I could make changes right then?

The ghosts that were haunting me receded into corners and I cleared my burning head enough to hear what was being read.  There was a paper to fix.  I am not someone with an abundance of talent.  You pretty much must need writing or sewing for me to be of any help. This time my prayers were answered not in solace, but in work.  Sentence by sentence over-the-phone we worked. The student had ability, but her teacher was right in his assessment. Later, we did meet in person for a major paper and I was able to show her what the professor wanted.  She thought I saved her scholarship; I knew she had saved me on a worst night. Interrupted at the right moment, I could regroup.  A good psychiatrist helped with stress and I made it through the next years, though the headaches persisted until menopause.  

Life does not have one worst night.  But I find they can often be borne by the intensity of your resolve and prayers.  But you have to keep moving, keep going, push through it.  In June of 1998, my first grandchild was born.  In August of the same year, I moved six hundred miles from him.  My search for a way out of that worst night was an odd one.  I had always wanted to dress dolls in period costumes.  I had finally found the necessary 18” dolls but lacked the time to work on it.  I made time in the small den of our new apartment.  I did five in the first batch.  Currently there are eighteen of them, but those first five remain important.  Busy hands, something difficult enough that I had to think about it, was my way through the first horrible weeks of the move.

I am no expert.  When we moved home we left grandchildren in that state.  I think I will be processing the worst days of leaving those you love for the rest of my life.  But you have to work it out and live in peace.

I believe in therapy.  I believe in medicine, if you participate in how it is used. And I definitely believe in prayer.  But the takeaway is this:  keep going.  Today’s sorrow and pain does not predict the future. Find things that you can do, develop yourself.  Find your soul.  And we can all find better days than our worst ones.