True Colors

"Rescued From Hell", stained glass, Gomm Studios (David and Jeanne Gomm), Provo, Utah.

My sister Cristall has this new acquisition hanging in her front window. I can't get enough of it. I even made it my phone's screensaver.

I've been the green man. Life got so tough that I fell down and woke up and everything was red. I don't know how I got there but I know I got there by accident. Looking back I vaguely remember being removed from the red. I guess when you're green it's hard to see turquoise. Then again, there were times I was completely coherent in red and quite aware of cooling, flapping turquoise saving me.

I have been the turquoise man. I have logged many miles with my wing harness tied tightly around my torso. (The harness looks more like a breastplate of righteousness than wings to those of us that collect armor.) It takes energy to find the green man and more energy to cradle and save him but when you're turquoise you only care about getting green out of red.

Turquoise men are filled with compassion and don't have quotas about how many times they will save green. They save green because they love green with love unfeigned, meaning no fakey-fakey. True love.

A few months ago my doorbell rang at 10:40 p.m. and it was Carol, my mom's best friend from growing up. I know Carol, of course, but she is not in my everyday life and thus her visit was a pleasured surprise. Carol came in and gave me a hug. She told me she had been feeling so emotional towards my situation and then presented me with a chocolate coconut cream pie. Words of love and encouragement followed and then she headed home to do salon payroll at midnight.

She hardly knows me. She is so busy. It was homemade. It was beyond sweet.

This made a Grand Canyon-sized impression on me. To feel so much love for someone you scarcely know and be motivated enough to deliver a pie when it's dark because YOU JUST HAD TO? Turquoise.

I wanted to call my mom as soon as Carol pulled out of the driveway but knew that the phone ringing in Missouri post-midnight would cause a heart attack. The following morning my mom learned how genuine her lifelong bestie is. Mom emailed Carol minutes later in tears, thanking her for being an angel to a hurting daughter that lived out of arms' reach. This is what Carol wrote back to her:

Melissa and I are friends on facebook so I have been following her situation and her blog. I was so touched by the blog about waiting for the train that will never come. I had to do something to let her know she was loved and pie seemed to fit with the story in her blog.

Life is full of so many different kinds of trials. Even though we will never have to experience every pain, having felt any kind of pain at all helps us understand another's suffering. 

I continue to learn that it doesn't matter if I have empathy. It doesn't matter if I know exactly what someone is going through. I can still help. I have begun to see that if I remove the situation and focus on the emotion someone is going through I can relate to anyone, just like Carol did. Carol has five kids. I doubt she knows what wanting a baby for 12 years feels like but that didn't stop her. I am certain in her lifetime of marriage and mothering she has experienced vacancy, waiting, wishing, yearning, frustration, and fear. Haven't we all?

The truth is we are all green and we are all turquoise. We take turns with suffering and saving, with losing and loving, with exhaustion and energy.

We are made for each other.

Two things: 1) Carol's salon is La Belle Vie in Pleasant Grove. It's gorgeous. You should go there just to see the antique door that separates the massage area from the pedicure room. 2) Cristall, among her fine taste in stained glass, has fine taste in movie scores. She recommended a song that I played on repeat for over an hour last night. It's "Chevaliers de Sangreal" from The Da Vinci Code. Worth the buck.