I saw my late mom’s swim friend, V., at the pool yesterday. There is something sweet about her recognizing me as “Esther’s daughter”. Nobody else in Toronto would know me that way. V. is 80. She is bent over and uses a walker. Her spine is visibly twisted. She has had at least one hip replaced. She walks to do groceries, swims a couple of times a week and lives in the house where she was born.
Her physical challenges are visible, but I don’t feel sorry for her. I admire her. I admire her strength and her tenacity. She is a little fierce and very independent. She is very much her own woman.
Seeing her did get me thinking, though, about challenges that aren’t visible. What if someone is trying to quit smoking? How about a person going every day to a bad job they can’t quit yet because they need to pay rent? Think of a parent trying to support an adult child with an illness or anxiety disorder. We all struggle. In our own ways we are also all strong – just maybe not always as much as we want to be. And yes we also fail and flail, sometimes many times more than we succeed.
Why am I talking about this? Maybe if we keep this in mind we will be kinder and grant grace to others and ourselves. Galen Emmanuel’s most recent blog video Lighten Up has the message: Assume the extreme best of other people. Good advice. You can’t always see what other folks are going through.