No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
No good deed goes unpunished. If you set out to make a difference, problems are going to be there waiting. If you care about other people, suffering is going to eventually be your companion. If you take a chance on love, sooner or later there will be heart break.
Doug met Laurie at a party in the park. They had already been through some problems: Both of them had raised families and been through divorce. Now they were living alone. A mutual friend had literally taken each of them by the arm, slammed them together and said: “Hey, both of you are single — you should meet each other.”
So this relationship blossomed and grew. We were all happy that these two had found each other. And then Laurie was diagnosed with cancer. She had an inoperable, malignant, brain tumor. That is when she and Doug decided to get married and move in together. Once they were married Doug could share some of his medical benefits with Laurie. She was going to need them.
It was a non-traditional wedding. First, it was held in the chapel of the nursing home where Laurie worked. Second, your’s truly was conducting it. Friends and family had gathered and as bride and groom walked down the aisle together, I got out my guitar and had everyone sing this song:
When you walk through a storm, keep your head up high;
And don’t be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm is a golden sky
And the sweet, silver song of a lark
Walk on through the rain,
Walk on through the wind,
Though your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone.
At this wedding, it was not just the promise hat Doug was going to walk through everything with Laurie, but that others would be there too: doctors and nurses and chaplains and especially friends and family members. All promised to go with them through it all.
Laurie fought the good fight. She went through a full course of chemotherapy. She lost her hair. At her birthday party that year, all her friends wore hats. She just got more and more tired. And then she simply “passed away”.
Friends and family members gathered once more in the nursing home chapel in order to say goodbye to Laurie and to let Doug know -one more time- that he was not going to walk alone. Others would walk with him.
If there is some kind of Holy Other, a just and loving God, perhaps this is what is promised: Not that you will be kept out of trouble, but that love is going to get you in deeper. Not that some power will get you out of it, but that you will get through it. Not that there is endless suffering, but that there is an end to your problems.
So may your problems come from trying to make a difference, rather than from apathy and sitting on the sidelines. May your pain comes from caring and not from indifference. May your heartache come from loving others and not just from loving yourself. And may it all finally end well.
