Nearly 40 years ago, when I first experienced symptoms of what I later learned was scleroderma, I found myself exhausted. There were plenty of logical explanations. I was in entrepreneurial mode, trying to launch a statewide news service for four NPR affiliates, and running myself ragged. I wasn’t sleeping well. My first marriage had just broken up, and I was struggling with a deep sense of failure. My gut was reacting to all the stress, and I was losing weight.
Fortunately, I had found a strong community in a local synagogue, and the mother of one of my friends offered to take me in and help me get back on my feet. She was a blunt woman, but she was also kind and a good cook, and after a week in her home, I began to regain my strength. And she told me this: It doesn’t take long to wear yourself down, but it takes a long time to build yourself back up again.
I have thought of those wise words many times since.
Of all the things I’m grateful for this Thanksgiving, I’m particularly grateful that in America we can express ourselves freely. But that freedom comes with profound responsibility. Words are powerful. What we say to each other and how we say it matters. It has become alarmingly clear that words can all too easily destroy what is best about our country, and it will take a long time to restore what we’ve already lost.
I hope the conversation around your dinner table is replete with all the respect and empathy so absent in our national dialogue. Each of us needs to be heard, but each needs to listen, really listen, too. That’s where true healing begins. Happy Thanksgiving.
Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.
Image: Scott Webb
Thank you for sharing this part of your history and reminding us all that we can’t control what comes out of other’s mouths, but we can mind our own words.
Indeed, well put, Jayne. Thanks.
This moving post made me think of a Jewish folktale: the villagers complain to the rabbi that Shmuely is constantly gossiping and spreading rumors about everyone. The rabbi calls him in, and asks him to take a feather pillow to the town square and slit it open, shaking all the feathers out. They fly everywhere. Then he returns and the rabbi tells him, “Now go collect all the feathers.” Shmuely: “But Rabbi, they are scattered all over, no way I can collect them!” Rabbi: “Now you see what happens to your bad words. They go everywhere and do more harm than you can even know. Stop spreading them!”
Distressed as I am about the tone of our national discourse, I don’t believe we are at the scattered feathers stage (yet). But we must cherish our freedoms and the atmosphere that permits them to thrive. I could not agree more about that!
And in case you don’t appreciate our American freedoms enough, I recommend the HBO series “Chernobyl,” called to my attention by my daughter and her Ukrainian husband. The picture it paints of government mismanagement and repression in the face of this unique disaster is truly chilling. Just don’t watch it close to meal time . . . .
Scattered feathers, yes. Although I’m a bit less optimistic about what stage we’re at now. And “Chernobyl” is an excellent series. Chilling, agreed.