Skip to main content

Underlying...

When I appear at my lowest, I see it clearer. Human cruelty. Putting out a carved pumpkin the other day. I said ‘Hello’ to a couple passing by. Let me interrupt. Don’t get me wrong, everyone has their dilemmas. Their life’s disruptions and so on. But after I said hello, turning, smiling at the couple. The wife who is a decade my junior comes back with, “You better be careful the squirrels will eat that.” My finding joy, after the recent passing of my husband of over thirty-six years somehow made her comment in a cruel fashion. However, it was not the first time she’d ever said a cruel thing to me, in the past two decades that I’ve lived in our neighborhood. I’ll give you another example of underlying cruelty, jealousy. Or better put, hatred. A man, owning a nearby nursery was asked by our youngest daughter four years ago at the innocent age of twelve. “I just started growing lemon trees. What can I do with the soil to help it grow them?” He replied, “It won’t work. You can’t do that.” Yes, that was his answer. Another example which has occurred so many times to me, especially in the last twenty years. As a person would see me out running. Then when they saw me at a store or a function, they would note they saw me running. I would reply, “Oh. Yes, I thought I saw you drive by me.” Their reply, “You should be careful you might get raped.” Little did they know I had already been raped many years before. This thought reoccurs every day when I look at the nearly five foot tall lemon tree our daughter has grown from seed. Its’ beautiful. Yesterday, I went to that same nursery… Why? You may ask. Its’ because I have constantly been reminded to disregard the hatred. I go to see his wife, who is a pleasure. For she is his rock. She barely knows me, but I know her. I bring her peace, hope, and quiet joy. Again, in simple conversation, without her around. His co-worker/son was ringing me up. He seemed a sweet twenty to thirty-year old man. The nursery owner, again for now I don’t know how many times in the past decade or so, threw out a cruel comment to me. I turned thanked the young man and said to the father the cruel human owner of the nursery, “Cancel, Cancel. Cancel, Cancel, that negative thought. And by the way, Norman is dead.” This quite short list…because I could give bukoo examples I’ve run into of human cruelty. This shows the world who those people are. As I now teach our children alone, about cruelty. Not that they don’t already understand cruelty. Yet, it is my job as a parent and decent human being to teach others that underlying cruelty people may inject into your thought process. In their hopes, that something goes awry in your life, because they are so miserable. Little do they know what goes on in someone else’s life. I had an acquaintance, who actually may be a friend. I don’t take that lightly. She revealed that she thought she knew me. She realized she didn’t. When asked why I didn’t make an announcement about my husband’s illness. Or even call her up about it, as he was dying. I replied, “I’m actually a very private person. Its’ about privacy. It was he who was dying, not me. Its’ also about respect.” I have now made a decision, that is when you think you have it worse than I. Or that I am somehow better off than you. I will remind you, that my husband is dead. That his children will not have him to see them through high school graduations, future educations, perhaps weddings, family gatherings. I drill it through you to make you feel the depth of your own cruelty. Why? Because I can. And you deserve what you give, back at you.--- Jody-Lynn Reicher

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Completion of Humanness

Completion of Humanness As we arrive to the completion of the first year without Norman, I had decided long before he'd passed that I would continue to do things certain things he liked yet could no longer do. I decided I would not take a day off of fitness.  I would run at least for 500 days in a row. I began that in early 2020.  I'd not be concerned with the distance I'd run. It was the very thing I convinced Norman and the thing that mattered to him, from the very first discussion we had August 11th, 1981, was fitness. I loved that he was a College Boy. He loved that I was a Marine. We tickled each other's soul with such admirations. Later fitness continued as an old discussion from 1994 ...getting outside and to run no matter what. I would say to him, "Run 200 meters, then 400 meters. If it doesn't feel good, stop. Turn around and walk back home and know you did your best. That is all you can ask of yourself." I said this,  knowing he would get dow

In My World

As I finish putting away the week's groceries, I contemplate other's lives. Aside from my two daughters,  I consider what may be other's lives.  How they have conducted their lives over the past two years.  This is a thought not unusual for me to have. Yet, it occurs more often than not. Especially  now, as the population is probably feeling ever more irked. Regarding perhaps. their illusion of any lack of their freedom. But isn't that what life is about? The illusion of who we are. What we are about. Where we stand on the planet. Who we love. And who loves us. Our significance. Couldn't we imagine if this were all just an illusion? Sounds like a "Twighlight Zone" episode, perhaps. My aim here, are the thoughts of reckoning. I'll explain why I'm claiming such a thing. For about twenty-eight years of a career in dealing with injured athletes,  pain patients, chronically ill and the terminally ill. I found that there were many people who lied to

It Follows Me...

One may wonder what would inspire someone to work hard labor voluntarily. For me it’s the love of many things. It’s the passion that won’t be broken. Because there are so many aspects to such service for me, that it may seem beyond comprehension. I’d compare it to my youthful desire to enter the military as a young child. Then for a multitude of reasons only to follow through thirteen years later at age eighteen entering the Marines. There were things that followed me throughout my life. Sometimes they were questions of how I ever gave up my over decade’s life dream to become a New Jersey State Trooper. My childhood desire to never wed—to never have any serious relationships with another human being. I desired only service in military and law enforcement nearly my whole childhood. Too the extent that even one of my Marine Corps superiors expressed to me last July, “I never thought you’d ever get married. It just wasn’t who you were. You were always a loner.” I replied, “Yeah. I know.