Day 11 (November 22, 2016): Love Actually Is All Around.

Less than 48 hours before Thanksgiving, I find myself thinking about the people who always remain in our lives. Despite the roadblocks that day-to-day chaos sets in the way, these individuals never quite leave us. So where does that sticking power come from? It's not money; I've experienced any number of relationships that were only really rooted in the green stuff. Money is great, but it's not the superglue that holds us together. Neither are fear or ambition. No, the Elmer's that cements friendship and love is a lot tougher than any of that. It's kindness.

For me, a case in point is a family that my family has been friends with since I started kindergarten--the Pezzas. Looking back, I lived a lot of my childhood at the Pezza's house. David, my age, was a classmate and partner in crime. We wrote plays together, conducted seances together in his upstairs closet, and basically created that imaginary play space that I really wish more kids today, including my own, understood and sought out. David's younger siblings, Chris and Mattie, also featured into these adventures. To me, the proverbial only child, they were the closest thing to honorary brothers and sisters that I'd ever have. 

A play date at the Pezzas was always a good time, but their house eventually became much more than that to me. When I was in fourth grade, my dad was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. That was April 1990; he was gone by June of the same year. During the months in between, I often crashed at the Pezzas' after school while my mom shuttled back and forth between suburbs and city to be with my dad in the hospital. 

I still recall David, Chris, and Mattie providing me with endless hours of entertainment and laughter, even when they were bickering with each other. Their company was a welcome distraction to my heart breaking as a man I adored vanished far faster than I could cling onto him. Their Aunt Renee offered the same sense of relief as she helped me with homework, did my hair, and somehow kept my mind from wandering back to a hospital room I'd never visit. And, of course, I'll never forget how effortlessly Mr. and Mrs. Pezza (Dave and Paula) made me feel at home, as opposed to treating me like a charity case . . . the girl who was too young to be a latchkey kid but too old to not comprehend the loss that was playing out a little more with every passing moment. About a month before my dad succumbed to his illness, Dave--an attorney--came to our house to assist my parents as they hurriedly put together a will. It was an act of kindness my mother still remembers to this day.

Following my father's death, the connection stayed strong. Then, after I got married and had my first two children, Paula--a realtor--undertook the rather ominous challenge of selling our condo and finding a bigger abode to accommodate us. It was literally YEARS of off-and-on house hunting; not because she wasn't a total pro at her job, but because our circumstances kept changing, and we'd periodically take our first place off the market or revise our notions of what constituted our dream house. Paula was a trooper through all of it . . . patient, vigilant, and as committed to looking out for my family's interests as she had been decades before. Ultimately, she successfully sold our condo in a market where condos were a dime a dozen and "new construction" was the local buzz word, though all we had to offer was "built sometime in the 1960s." She found us our current home, as well, and, with the births of each of our next four babies, it became the address where she dropped off gifts or meals as a I recuperated from the joy of labor.

Through all of this, I read about what was happening in the lives of my former childhood pals--the Pezza kids--via social media. Every so often, I'd catch snippets of a post that reminded me why I love and respect their family so much. Probably little things to them but big things to the people who benefited from their countless displays of kindness--helping feed someone who was down on their luck or speaking out to support the idea that everyone deserves to be treated with empathy and compassion. 

Then, today, I happened to stumble upon the following post by Paula:

A small token of thanks today in an effort to return kindness. A store employee ( I assume a cart collector because of the way he was bundled up) was in line at the coffee/snack bar. He was next but when I walked up he insisted I go ahead of him. So I did. While I was waiting at the other end for my drink I told the woman behind the counter to take his order and that I would pay for it but not to tell him until after he ordered. She did . The look on his face and how thankful he was, was priceless. I'm guessing the cost of his little order was probably what he cleared in an hour working outside in the cold. His simple act of kindness reminded me that there is good around us and how blessed I truly am. He made my day!

What strikes me about this statement is the beauty of Paula's perspective. As a writer, I pride myself on knowing how to spin things. As a friend, I also know the Pezzas. Her story isn't about what she gave--though the manner in which she "paid it forward" is undeniably admirable. If you read her words closely, Paula's post is more about how grateful she was for what she received--a reminder that the world is a kind place filled with kind people. Her "spin," if you can call it that, offers a framework that more of us should fall back on with far greater frequency. When we give, we do get something in return. And the particulars of that gift are best summed up in  my favorite Hugh Grant quote:

"If you look for it, I've got a sneaking feeling you'll find that love actually is all around."

Thanks to the Pezzas, that was certainly the conclusion I reached when I was ten, wondering why my world was crashing down around my ears. They reinforced the same idea as I grew up, grew my own family, and grew to realize what precious commodities love and kindness are. Today, I am still reeling from recent footage of insane politicians hailing Hitler in 2016 . . . and from the tales of woe and human despair that seem to ooze across both social media and good, old-fashioned print publications. We need to hear those tales because it's up to us to stop hatred in its tracks. But we also need to hear stories of the people who will always be with us--because they will always fuel the kindness that our world is in such dire need of, perhaps now more than ever before.