Have you ever read those stories on the internet or Facebook that are just beautiful and wonderful moments of serendipity? A young person was having a really hard time at school, and someone, out of the blue, came up and gave them a bouquet of flowers. An old, homeless man was sitting on a park bench, no money, no food, and a kind stranger came up, cleaned him up, fed him, made him feel like a human being again? Someone planned to end it all and commit suicide that day, and out of nowhere someone did something kind for them, made them feel special, and they chose a different path. When you read those stories, did you ever just want to call bullshit and say this is just a ploy from some creative person providing us a fictional account just to try to make us feel good? I know I’d get sucked in for a moment, but then I’d say, nah, bullshit, this is too perfect.
OK, my story isn’t perfect, but my story is real, and because it’s real and happened to me, I find it incredibly beautiful. So here is how it goes:
As some of you know, I’ve been on a journey with depression most of my adult life. It ebbs and flows, sometimes I rise up, sometimes I plummet. The reality I’ve come to know is that there’s no cure, there are coping mechanisms, but no cure. Recently, I plummeted. Not unusual, but what really troubled me this time is that I was thinking about killing myself. Now, before anyone gets too excited, I really don’t believe I’d ever go through with it, I subscribe to the “It’s a Wonderful Life” philosophy where if you knew the impact you had on the world, you’d never kill yourself. As much as I don’t see it, I believe that if I got to play Jimmy Stewart and see my life and the impact I had on people, I would see I made a positive impact in many cases.
Also, I got to see the devastation my brother Billy’s suicide created for all of us, I can’t imagine Billy would have ever done it if he would have known what his act did to all of us, but I also understand where he was at. In the immortal words of my brother when someone asked him how he knows so much about suicide, he said:
“I think about it every God damn day”
And that had become my reality, I started thinking about it every God damn day, and I was even coming up with how I would do it. Each method I came up with had some flaws to it, which again, made me think or realize, I probably wasn’t that serious, but the fact that I was thinking about it daily, made me take it seriously.
But enough about me, this story really isn’t about me, this story is about Ava. Let me tell you about Ava, and what Ava did:
Ava is one of my students at Ohio Dominican University. As I say about my children and my dogs, none of them are my favorites, all of them are my favorites. Ava is one of those. She’s a very good student, and also a very nice young lady.
We started Yoga Club on campus this year, and it’s been mostly a wonderful experience for me, I love teaching the students yoga, and they are just an incredibly fun group. Ava comes to virtually every Yoga Club event, and we oftentimes get a chance to talk before or after class.
For the last Yoga Club of the year, I was a bit frustrated, the announcement of the class day and time got mixed up, so I wasn’t completely sure if I’d have anyone in class. Thankfully, it came together, and we did end up with a normal number of students for our last class of the year. Still, I was a little frustrated because of the lack of clarity, I really wanted the last class to be special. And it was.
After class, Ava gave me a card, and to just call it a card would be a horrible understatement and really a disservice to what she did. There are many layers, but let me start at the beginning, the message on the outside of the card:
As I opened the card, I was stunned by two aspects. One, she filled the entire inside of the card with a message for me. Second, the writing was perfect, she had to have spent a considerable amount of time crafting the message for it to be this neat. But then, the message itself. It wouldn’t be fair to Ava to share the entire message, it was a personal card to me, and that’s where it needs to stay, but she weaved so much in about what yoga class meant to her, particularly the messages or stories I provided each class.
Each class I would begin with a story about various topics, such as, the Yama’s and Niyama’s, Being Kind, Our Journey is Our Gift, Did You See the Cypress Tree on the Way Here? and so on. I would give them a card that represented that week’s message, a gift I learned from my wife, Laurel. I wanted to teach my students yoga, not just asana, and I think many of the students embraced it, enjoyed it, but there is no doubt Ava did.
She expressed her gratitude for my stories, my vulnerability, my compassion, and the cards that she would keep as inspiration. I was swept away with emotion, I couldn’t believe all of the words of praise she had for me, and again, how much thought and effort she had to have put into this. She had absolutely no obligation, no ulterior motive to put all of this effort into the card, there was no grade or bonus points to be earned, she did this purely as an act of kindness, of gratitude, of appreciation. She did this for me, and for one of the few moments in my life, I felt like maybe I was making an impact. Of course, I had that moment where I thought to myself, I don’t deserve this, if she only knew what was running through my mind every day, she wouldn’t have written this and thought this about me. But maybe she did, and maybe she still would have, but who knows, because even I wouldn’t be that honest to tell Ava how much her card meant in my life and why it meant so much.
So why am I telling all of you? I also subscribe to the philosophy of Mother Teresa:
I will admit, this one takes me to a whole new level, broadcasting to all of you my thoughts about killing myself is even out there for me. But after much thought and consideration, I felt like I needed to share Ava’s story and what her card meant to me.
I believe everyone has a purpose in life, and maybe this is my purpose. I would always say about my blog posts that if just one person reads my blog and gets something out of it, then I would consider it a success. I’m hopeful that at least one of you reads this story, and becomes the next Ava. It doesn’t have to be as grand and beautiful as what Ava did, but even a small act of kindness and appreciation can mean a lot to someone who desperately needs it. Just like Ava, you may never know the huge impact you made, but just the thought of the possibility that you helped someone when they needed it the most, wouldn’t that feel great? It may not end up being like one of those magical, beautiful internet stories, but it will be your story. You can make such a difference with simple, small acts of kindness. Believe me, I know, it made such a difference for me.
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