The Good, The Bad and Banana Cars

One of the mornings that I was in the hospital with postpartum preeclamplsia, Adam, with Theo in his arms, shifted to look out the window.  He boosted himself up a bit and looked out even further. He smiled, grabbed his phone and snapped a picture. 

“You have to see this,” he exclaimed, lighting the dark room with his phone as he brought it to me. 

Based on this picture, just outside, three floors below was a little yellow car that look like… a banana.  

It was weird and strange and after a few days of bad news in a dark room Adam thought it might make me smile.

It worked.  

We both giggled.

We imagined who drove this car.  Was one of the doctors? What does this person’s neighbors think of this silly car? Was this the car they drove every day or was today a special occasion?  I imagined the person starting that rainy April day and getting into their banana car just like they might every single day.  Totally normal and routine. No big deal.

Nothing like my life that morning.

I looked past the silly vehicle and through the busy hospital parking lot.  People coming and going, shaking umbrellas.  I looked out to the highway.  A highway I drove all the time.  Cars sped by, just like I had done too many times to count. All without a thought about what was going on in that building.

Then, I would have been going to a meeting, dinner with friends, over to my in-laws or heading out of town.

Now, my life felt like it was standing still. Like pause had been hit on the world as we waited in this period of sadness and challenge.

Except pause had not been hit. Life was still going. The world was still turning. People were still running to meetings, dinners, family and friends homes, the grocery store and more.

And, in a few days, I would be back in it.

Running the same errands. Visiting with friends. All the while, carrying the sadness and heaviness of the hospital stay for months. Carrying it with me out in the world, pushing it down with a smile on my face. Being normal and routine.

The clouds of rain from that day would still be with me, but few would see them.

But, the more I recognize sadness, trauma, and hard times for what they are the more I know we are all followed by a rain cloud from time to time. This is not said to make sad and hard times a “right of passage” or “normal.” It sucks. It uproots your life and everything you thought to be normal. But, still, not one of us is exempt from periods this.

As I write this, people in my close circle are dealing with hospitalized children, addiction to alcohol, babies with life long illness, recovery from surgery, aging parents, divorce, job loss, the sudden death of a spouse and a stillborn infant.

This isn’t just pulling from headlines or social media. These are people in my phone book that I could call and it wouldn’t be strange.

And, it is all happening right now. 

Real stuff.

Real hard stuff.

But, they are still going to the grocery store.

They see their friends and go to work.

Life goes on and they are out in the world.

Their days- seemingly surreal- are completely normal and routine to other people. With their heart hurting and mind heavy, anxious or not all there, they are still doing life out amongst us all.

Here is the thing: My circle of friends is not unique.

Nor was I in 2016.

Let me be crystal clear here… I say this and don’t mean to make these things smaller. I hate that the people I love are facing these life altering realities. What my friends are going through is major and beyond painful; but, it’s not just my friends who are walking these hard times. 

There are people like this out in the world every day.

They are all around us. We see them all the time… But, do we really?

We are quick to get annoyed with the woman moving slow in the freezer aisle. We want to flip off the man who blows the stop sign. We don’t leave a tip for the waitress for being forgetful. We breezily ask what “what are you shopping for?” and assume the customer is super rude when they don’t respond.

But, could she be shopping for what she will be wearing to her husband’s funeral?

Could it be the due date for the baby she lost at twenty weeks?

Could the man have just gotten news that his son was rushed to the hospital?

Could the woman moving too slow at the store be dealing with something? Some thing sad? Something hard?

She could. In fact, odds are that she might be.

Sometimes I find myself getting really introspective, I can’t help but wonder what it’s all about and why this happens. Get me a glass of wine or two and let’s chat about it. Why do these bad things happen? To good people?

And, if the wine is good and my mood is a particular flavor of dark, I go there and I wonder if maybe life is just one big trauma. 

It sounds very doom and gloom, right? I know. Like, all we are here to do is get punched around and banged up?

Well… actually, yes. Kinda.

As certain as there is to be good things in life, there will be bad.

So, maybe life is just… lifey.

It sucks and it’s hard sometimes. It throws curve balls and gut punches. It isn’t fair and it tests us. And, there isn’t much we can do about it.

Sure. Yes, of course! There is therapy. Couples therapy. Groups and more. Good conversations with professionals and doctors. There are so many crazy-smart people working to cure illness and make our world safer, cleaner and happier. Use them and have faith in their expertise.

But, maybe one of the biggest and best things we can do as normal people about this weird, mean, wonderful thing called life… is to keep living. 

To keep going to the store or the meeting. To your friends and family’s homes.

Or, to get in your banana car and hope that it makes someone smile.

To look up and acknowledge someone’s pain on the days that you have it pretty good. To not bristle and assume they are an idiot or lazy. To see them. And, give them a little grace. 

Because out there in this wild world, you never know who may need it.

Either way, at one point or another, we all will.

And, today? It might be one of my friends.