Not Really A DEAD END

Last night while I was out with friends, there was a woman who was sitting at the bar she didn’t seem alone at first glance but she was. She was dressed well and appeared put together. Not long after our group’s arrival she briefly interacted with a couple people  from our group and went back to her seat. Not too long after that interaction, I watched as she made her way to the door. I saw her feet stumble and her knees flex and knew she was going to fall. But there was nothing I could do from where I was standing to stop it. And she did, she fell backwards between the tables and smashed her head against the wall. I watched, frozen, seeing her fall and realizing she really was alone. The staff went to help her and made sure she didn’t drive home. I couldn’t stop watching. I saw her pain. I KNEW her pain. I didn’t know her story but I recognized the pain I knew so well. I had defined my life and carried the weight of that darkness, pain, and loneliness for a decade. But I was frozen unable to offer any help or comfort. 

This morning I missed my morning run, my chest cold and cough persuading me to choose sleep over a brisk December run. But later in the day I knew I needed the run more than the rest as I battled my brain to stay focused on the happiness and blessings and not the loss, a struggle that feels more pronounced during the holidays. The pain in that woman’s eyes at the bar was stuck in my head and I wrestled with my inadequacy to not help her in some way. I’d been her a few times but I was always surrounded by friends and family who broke my falls and kept me on my feet.

I began running my favorite route, the woman still in my thoughts and began counting my blessings. The sun was shining and I needed to know I could do this run without my running partner because I’d only ever run it with him and had begun to doubt my own ability to push myself and run the longer runs alone like I used to.  I stayed focused the whole run on getting to my favorite spot at about the half way mark.

The first time I ran it, as we were running, my friend tugged my arm and said, “let’s go this way,” as he turned down a street with a large yellow diamond sign that said DEAD END. I glanced at him and he said, “ “it’s not really a dead end.” Several miles from where we parked our cars, I had no choice but to trust him, I went with it and just past the dead end around this little corner was a bridge that ran over the river.  I loved it! It was like a secret spot and it is my favorite spot and why I love running that route.  As I ran across today I thought, had I been alone that DEAD END sign would’ve stopped me in my tracks, I would’ve turned around, and I never would know this favorite spot, this secret bridge I love running across so much. And then I began thinking about all the DEAD ENDs in my life that I’ve run past because they weren’t really dead ends. The limits of illness, loss, death, I just kept going, right past the dead end signs life sent, discovering new favorite parts on my journey and I so much wanted to go back and tell that woman, “ don’t quit, it’s not really a dead end. Trust the journey. Go past the dead end sign because your favorite part is just around that corner you can not yet see.”

During the holidays many people are struggling with the pain of the loneliness they feel from a life that isn’t always fair. They might look put together with a smile on the outside and might look like they’re surrounded with friends but sometimes that kind of pain is really indescribable and by virtue of being indescribable and impossible for others to understand, it becomes the loneliest of loneliness, so quietly behind the smile they are hurting. Reach out to those people in your life even if they say they’re fine- your kind hello that let’s them know they’re not forgotten or alone might just keep them from falling over alone and give them the courage to trust and know it’s never really a dead end.