Tag Archives: kindness

Temporarily Losing my Engagement Ring

June 25, 2014 Lily Henderson Leave a comment

So here I am, sobbing in the airport. I hate this for many reasons. See, I’ve just realized that I am not wearing my engagement ring, and I must have run out the door of my hotel room without it. My perfect, vintage, sapphire ring was gone. The one that I picked out with my partner to mark the moment when we decided to throw caution to the wind and get hitched despite a murky and unpredictable future. The ring that followed us through three cross-country moves, two years of long distance, multiple new homes.

I’m trying as hard as I can to stop the flow of tears, because not only am I distraught that I could be so careless as to lose this unbelievably important symbol in my life, I am angry at how frantic I look to strangers. How they can see I’m falling apart, how they will judge this enormous character flaw, and how I am the dumb girl who lost something so important.

Sitting in the bathroom, holding my breath so that other people can’t hear my crying, I give myself a silent pep talk. “Come on, Lily. Get your shit together. There are things you need to do before you get on that plane to increase your chances of finding that ring.” I squeeze my fists tightly and take three deep breaths, using my anger to push down the sadness and regret and dizzying irresponsibility so I can call the hotel.

I was passed from staff member to staff member, as the hotel struggled to help me deal with the situation. My voice cracks and theirs soften. “Oh honey, where were you in the hotel? Where can we check for you?” I am so thankful for their kindness, and so embarrassed at my carelessness. I call my roommate from the conference, and ask her to check around the room, see if she sees the glint of metal. I am angry for inconveniencing her this morning. She comforts me, “We’ll find it.” I call the cab driver who took me to the airport—nothing. I call and call and call, no result after no result. I am shaking, my eyes are rimmed with tears, my voice is far from steady, and I feel like people are watching me. Watching me fall apart.

I call my mom and she gives me suggestions for where else to look and how to calm down. She is so zen in situations like this. She suggests sitting and breathing because, now that I’m past security, there isn’t much else for me to do but wait to see if any one of my taskforce will find it.

On the plane, I am thankfully seated in a row by myself, and now that I am not allowed to make any calls, the weight starts to really sink in and I totally lose control. Because it’s a short flight, I don’t have to interact with flight attendants or other passengers, so I completely lose my composure and just cry and cry and cry, wishing that I had been more careful, angry that I had to inconvenience so many people, upset because I am never this way.

I reach into my pocket for a tissue—and there it is. In my pocket! Who is this crazy person, who not only could lose it in the first place, but the usually cool-headed Lily Henderson could forget to check her own pocket?! We land and I call the hotel to let them know that I’ve found it, and am hit with a warm wave of relief and joy as it comes through the phone. I was completely unprepared for these strangers to react with such kindness—not only at the ring being lost, but to celebrate with me once it was found. Humanity is inspiring, folks. The same thing happens when I text my conference roommate—pure joy that the dilemma is solved. I don’t know what I was expecting—contempt, maybe? But it turns out that everyone I asked not only took time to help me, but continued to show compassion once my situation had been righted. Even though they all had better things to do.

For me, this was an exhausting but effective lesson in human kindness and in letting myself off the hook. I am a known perfectionist and have an extremely hard time asking for help because I don’t want to inconvenience people, and I don’t want to look like I don’t care. What an enlightening situation where I not only was forced to ask for help fixing my mistake, but I also found that even when I was totally inconveniencing others and making a fool out of myself, both my friends and strangers took care of me in ways that I didn’t even know I needed. And in the end, everything worked out.

This made me really reconsider how I structure my thinking around mistakes. When I do something utterly stupid (and everyone does, right? Right?), what if I have the opportunity to choose between digging myself into a shame spiral of regret and anger while furiously fixing the problem alone, or reaching out to a caring community? Why would I ever pick the first? Yes, I risk being seen as dumb, but isn’t it better to be seen as human and then able to see other people’s love?

So, thank you, universe, for the strange, painful, effective and ultimately low-risk opportunity to learn about letting yourself be seen. Because there are people who might surprise you with their kindness, and I don’t want to miss out on knowing them.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Home, Relationships

Lessons From My Mom

March 6, 2014 Christina M. Tedesco 4 Comments

As the only girl and the youngest child, I will admit I was spoiled for a good share of my life. I looked up to my mother as a child and, in my teens, while most of my girlfriends “hated” or fought with their moms, my mom and I were friends. Yes, of course we had our fights and tiffs, just like many mothers and daughters, but that is not what stuck out about our relationship.

I was fortunate to learn at such a young age how important a good relationship with my mother was. Not only do I enjoy doing our one-on-one mother-daughter things, but I have learned so much about life just by watching my mother interact with the world around her. She didn’t just sit me down and talk at me, she showed me. I learned by observing her capability, attitude, and reactions. I’m not even sure she knows the qualities she has shown me: like her kindness, her work ethic, and putting others first, to name a few. Most people see these in my mother just by talking to her. And while she did pass down to me a few unwanted qualities, such as compulsively re-checking everything is unplugged multiple times before leaving the house, she has passed down an uncountable amount of good qualities that made me the person I am today.

She and my father taught me the importance of a good work ethic. They both worked so hard, and carried multiple jobs, just to give everything they earned to my brothers and me. I look back at my childhood and how I made friends with the kids, who would get picked on, or ones with learning disabilities, or ones from bad homes, because my mother encouraged me to love and appreciate every person. I watched her kindness shine through as I saw how she cared for others above herself. It was her who taught me to love and befriend the unloved and friendless. People can tell you over and over how important these qualities are, but it isn’t until you see them first-hand that you know why they’re so important.

As I grow, my relationship with my mother grows too. When I was younger, I couldn’t exactly appreciate what she had done for me and the rest of our family. I couldn’t see how special the relationship between my parents was. They showed me what a beautiful relationship looks like and how to keep it strong for over 35 years. While I am not a mother yet, I’ve learned so many things to prepare me for motherhood and I know what I want my relationship with my daughter to look like. My dad used to work over nights, so my mom had a queen bed all to herself and she would occasionally let me sneak in to have a girls’ sleepover. As a child it was one of my favorite things, and when I grew up we would still have the occasional girls’ night sleepover together.

When I was a teenager, I thought I knew everything, obviously. I couldn’t have been more wrong and eventually, like (most) of us do, I grew out of that and came to realize that my parents were right about pretty much everything.

The older I get, I earn more respect for my mother and all mothers out there. I cannot think it is an easy job to take on. There may be many parenting books on the shelves, but nothing can tell you an exact formula on how to be a perfect mother, or how to make a perfect child. Often times, we put the blame on our mothers, but for most of us, being the child is the easy part, being the mother is what is difficult. My mom always trusted me and had faith that I would make good decisions. My curfew as a teen was usually 1 AM and my mother always said it was because she trusted me and the people I was with. She treated me with respect because she knew me, and that she and my father instilled in me the qualities I needed to make good decisions. My friends also grew close to my parents, so close in fact that they would call her mom (or “ma” as we say in New York), and they would confide in her. Not only did she take care of my family and friends, but also the numerous pets I begged and pleaded for—the ones I promised I would look after and clean-up for.

It has become harder now that I live across the country from my parents—I look back on all the things that I didn’t necessarily take for granted, but didn’t realize how important they were to me. How the simple things are the things I enjoyed the most. Like sitting in the afternoon and having a cup of coffee with my mom while watching House Hunters. Or watching “our shows” together at night. It’s difficult to no longer have those moments in my life on a regular basis, but it also makes them more precious. To me the little things in life mean the most and when I sit alone on the couch, across the country, I wish my mom was sitting next to me.

So I raise a glass to all the amazing mothers out there raising and instilling their highest qualities in us and preparing us for children of our own. Who teach us how to make a mean cup of coffee, killer eggplant parm, and amazing meatballs and still always have the recipes on hand for whenever we call to tell them we’ve lost it… again. It scares me how quickly life seems to pass by, but what I’ve come to learn from both my parents is that no matter what we have thought about family before, it is the most important thing and we have to appreciate it while it’s here.

Photo by Remi Coin