Suffering fogs the air before this man. It clogs his pores. Turned ninety on Easter, he once said he hadn't felt alive since his first marriage. That's a forty-five year span of self-hatred, and you can tell from the quiver in his voice that he's never been more desperate for change. Sips of bitter liquor are both his medicine and his demise. He drinks because he is lonely, and lonely because he drinks.
But he's not the only resident that sits alone. There, by his favorite table near the window, is another solitary figure. But instead of holding a drink, he holds your gaze. Laughs. Asks if you had any trouble driving into work through the rain: he's talked to you enough times to know that your car has a horrible habit of hydroplaning. This man is never questioned as to whether anyone will be joining him for dinner, as everyone knows his story. Knows that he's saving that empty seat across from him for his wife. Knows that she's in hospice care. Knows that he still has hope.
Together since their twenties, they were the couple everyone aspires to be. Always friendly to other residents, yet too wrapped up in each other to really need friends. So when she could no longer make it down to the dining room, condolences were offered to her husband, but never a seat for dinner. Not that he would have taken it anyway; he's still waiting for the only life he knows to recover.
This is a man who hurts. But you'd never know it from his smile.
And the waitress taking his order, she suffers too. Always bubbly on the job, no one would ever guess that she cries into the steering wheel once she hits highway on her way home. Overwhelmed by the thought of graduating and having to restart her perfectly constructed life, she throws herself into her job. It's the thing that makes her happy. But she knows she'll have to leave it soon.
Teenage angst, she knows, is not worth discussing. Love, or lust, or whatever it is she feels, is not worth admitting. She realizes it will have to be extinguished by the fall. But that doesn't stop her from helping that boy bust his tables. Or talking in the parking lot after their shift.
This girl has good in her life, she just can't seem to find a deeper meaning. She misses her elementary school friends. Misses her sister living at home. This girl wants nothing more than a reason to stop hitting 'snooze' on her alarm clock. This girl is me.
I suffer. Suffer, yes, yet I survive. Sometimes that's all you need. Look at the aged alcoholic; he takes it a day at a time. Every day there's new hope that his lady friend will arrive. That she'll be everything he wishes she was, and he'll be everything she dreamed of.
Glance back at the man with the sick wife. He suffers now, but understands he lived a fairytale. He appreciates his happiness. He is what is keeping his wife alive, so he knows he must be strong. We could all learn a lot from him. Borrow some of his strength; he's got enough of it to go around.
When it comes down to it, that's all humans need. Hope, strength, and an open heart. Trust in others. Love. Laughter. Because, at the end of the day it's not our sufferings that defines us, but rather how we deal with them.
