The Keepers

Photo by Laura Glover
www.pixelzoo.co.za

In the everyday bustle of everyday life, it is easy to forget that there are good people in the world. We easily become swamped by the everyday bitter people like the checkout girl at the grocery store that was obviously angry with me because, get this, I was buying groceries and had the audacity to push my cart up to her empty cash register. Or, the man at the bank who grumbled questionable phrases (earmuffs kids!) as we waited in line. The kid at the pool who was bullying the others and his mother who shrugged it off proclaiming “survival of the fittest” as her parenting style. And my personal favorite, the woman driving the Chevy Suburban with a little school of Jesus fish stuck to the back, who passed me and three other cars, illegally, holding a perfectly manicured, diamond encrusted middle finger out her window so we’d know exactly where she thinks we should go for driving the speed limit down a small town road. These are the types of people you are guaranteed to meet on any given day. Still, on a rare and beautifully gifted day, you could be reminded of the goodness that people can possess.

My favorite movie is Stranger Than Fiction, in which Will Ferrell plays a man named Harold Crick who realizes one day that his life is being narrated by a strange British woman’s voice (Emma Thompson). And, sadly, the British woman has pointed out that Harold is now facing his imminent death. Harold discovers he is a character in a woman’s novel and that this woman is well known for writing beautiful tragedies. He reads his own tragedy, as she has written it, and agrees to die because it is the right thing to do. The author decides that a man who knows he is going to die and does so willingly for the benefit of others is “the kind of man you’d like to keep around.” And so, his life is rewritten.

I met a Harold Crick this weekend, and she is definitely the kind of person I think we should be able to keep around. She’s typifies goodness, kindness, and love. She is a patient at a hospital in Maryland where I attended a Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure Expo. My sister and I went to volunteer, our job being to just do as the big wigs told us to do with smiles on our faces and tutus on our waists. We were asked to go visit some patients on the Oncology floor that were too sick to come to the expo, but could use some cheering up and some company. One of the women was waiting to hear from the doctors whether or not the tumor on her brain was cancerous. She was nervous, it was obvious, but she smiled widely and laughed easily and immediately asked if we could come with her to visit her new friend in the room next door. This new friend, we were informed, had had a very bad night.

We were brought next door and met with a woman who was obviously very sick, in great pain, tired and scared. But as soon as she saw our ridiculous parade walk in her room (two women in tutus, one with feather boobs and another with a big grin and a penchant for cursing), her face lit from within. She looked at her friend and said, “You are a nut.” And her friend responded, “I’m just so happy to see that smile on your face.” And it wasn’t a big smile, just the barest glimpse of a smile. Within that ghost of a smile though, there was some joy and less fear. It was an honor to have been there to witness it.

After our visit, the woman stood in the hallway thanking us profusely. She cried and we all hugged and I thought to myself this is the kind of person I’d like to keep around. Someone who is waiting alone to hear whether or not she has brain cancer, but is more concerned about making the woman she met less than twelve hours ago smile. Relieving that woman’s fears was more important than squashing her own. So, excuse me if I’d rather trade her in for the diamond encrusted middle finger lady. It isn’t my place to decide who goes and who stays - at least not here in the real world. But if I were the author and this were my story, then I’d keep the good ones around, keep the good ones alive. And the rest – well, they’ll just have to rewrite their own stories.