Compassion and Generosity

I started crying on the bus today.

I was reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, an autobiography about a woman trying to find peace and healing after a messy divorce. My book club chose it, and I'm so glad they did because otherwise I never would have picked it up.

Anyway, back to the part that has me crying on a public bus before I've even had my morning coffee...

Liz, the author, is in Bali and meets and befriends a local medicine woman who has given up everything to escape an abusive husband that sent her to the hospital many times. She fought for 2 years, selling every last posession she could find to pay a lawyer, so she could also rescue her young daughter. In Balinese culture, where everyone lives as a huge, extended family unit and divorces are rare, mother and daughter lead a somewhat lonely, unstable existence. They are constantly moving as rents increase and money runs low. The daughter spends all day drawing pictures of houses and praying for a home. And on top of it all, the mother has also adopted two orphan girls, rescuing them from a life of pan-handling on the streets. The lease is up, and the family will have to move yet again because rent has increased. That's when Liz is inspired.

She goes and emails all her friends and family in the States, asking that, in lieu of a party and presents for her up-coming 35th birthday, everyone please make a small donation to help this family buy a home of their own. She will match all donated funds with her own money.

After the first day, she already had hundreds of dollars. By the second day, her email had been passed along to complete strangers who were donating money to help a family they had never met. A friend's new husband, who Liz had never met, pledged to match the total raised. Friends she knew to be broke even donated. By the end, she had raised over $18,000!

And as I was reading this, I just became overwhelmed by how wonderful people can be. Even in this scary world we live in sometimes, we haven't lost the ability to tap into that humanity.

It reminded me of the day my mom became my hero.

One of my parents' friends was in a devastating car accident and sadly was killed instantly. He left behind a handicapped wife with two boys and a young, new baby. It was my first experience with real-life tragedy, and I remember it being such a horrible shock to realize that someone so central in your life could vanish in a split second.

My mom had lost contact with this family after her divorce and probably hadn't spoken to any of them in years. But when she heard about the accident, she, a single, struggling mother of 3, swiftly took action. We went to the store and loaded our cart with groceries, canned goods, baby food, diapers, shampoos, toothpaste, everything we could think of. Then in the wee hours of the following morning, we drove to their house, unloaded the bags and bags of the basic necessities of life onto their porch and drove off without a word to anyone. No note. No follow-up. In fact, this may be the first time I've ever told that story, but I never forgot how proud I was of my mom at that moment. I wonder when she last thought of that day.

The book's story also reminded me of a time when I was the recipient of that kind of grace. In the two years before moving to Austin, I lived in Boulder, Colorado. And I absolutely loved it! I made some great friends there, but I didn't quite realize just how great they were until just a few months before I moved away.

While on a back-country camping / hiking / mountain-climbing trip with three fantastic, heroic friends, I was hurt in a scary accident (that, honestly, could have turned out so much worse than it did). I was uninsured at the time, and my emergency room visit was a daunting financial stress on my limited income. I don't think I ever mentioned this to anyone, but my friends knew I was uninsured. Two of the guys who had been with me on that trip (and who were probably significantly more scarred by the accident than I was) were roommates. They threw a party at their house a little while after the accident - I still had a limp, a black eye and a cast on my wrist. Unbeknownst to me, during this party they were collecting sneaky donations from anyone who wanted to contribute to the Poor Larisa fund. A few days after the party, Sean sat me down and told me what they had done. I was absolutely stunned. Then once the shock wore off, I was so incredibly touched. All of these lovely people, most of whom were still students, and their inherent generosity... How could I ever repay them?

I couldn't, in fact. Sean flat out refused to tell me anyone's name so I didn't even know who to thank. No amount of begging and pleading would intice him. Instead he insisted that I hand over my bills so he could use that money to take care of them. To this day, I still don't know who my secret benefactors are so I remain grateful to every last one of those people up there.

Every time I think of those two incidents, I get a little choked up. And I just hope that when the opportunities arise, I will have a chance to show the same compassion and generosity to pay it forward.