Claudette

I never thought that my passion to help others would lead me into a job wherein I did same, but indeed this is where I landed and for the past 30 years, I have been helping others be better than what they ever expected to be. The reality is that we carry a large suitcase around filled with all the bad memories, traumas, things we have been told that chip away at our self-esteem, our image, our self-worth and even though we try to remove these items from our suitcase we tend to put more in. We cannot seem to leave this suitcase behind. Because of this I felt that helping others was the only path for me. There must be a way that I can help people leave those old memories behind and focus on better ones. 

Early on I thought that speaking to people and hearing their stories was just an innate interest to listen and learn from what others were experiencing. What an amazing way to see things more broadly through the life of another. For the longest time, these conversations and listening sessions where just that converse, ask questions, listen, and repeat. Never really leading to anything other than letting someone else share their life or a moment. Allowing them to release and expel and that being enough to move on. Typically, these conversations were vibrant and normal until the day I met Claudette. This full of life 20 something who happened to sit by me at a women’s luncheon was going to give me more with her story than I ever expected. As I embarked with my usual curiosity seeking questions, I realized that this was going to be much more than a typical sharing of one’s life or most recent experience, but rather a story that would need my personal involvement. A cry for help because of Claudette’s desperation. 

I quickly learned that as a widowed, mother of a young daughter she had fled her country due to political persecution and her husband had been killed while trying to board their plane due to unfounded suspicion by the local police. She and her daughter were eventually allowed to leave, but this act of violence and loss crippled her still even though it had been 2 years past. Her daughter was now 5 years old and her ability to be a present and caring mother was just not in her. Her desire to live and be happy was out of her reach and something she just could not do. Her anguish was greater than everything else. How can she be a good mom, how can she protect and provide for her daughter when she could not help herself.

I certainly, could not just listen and walk away or just express my sadness to her situation, I had to find away to help Claudette empty her suitcase of this sadness and rearrange her memories so she could move on. I asked Claudette if she was working with someone to help her through this. She let me know she was not, she did not know why, but had never felt like going to someone about her situation, she felt she could manage it on her own. She felt she was coping and that was enough. She then apologized to me for having dumped on me her problems even though that was not something she ever did. I assured her that she had not, that if I did not want to have heard her story, I would not have asked her to share it. Her eyes quickly dropped, and she began to cry. I assured Claudette that it was not going to be easy and it was not going to be quick, but that we could work together to help her come to grips with her memory, her experience, her emotions so she could move on as a person and a mother and if she were up for this, we would do it together. I suddenly saw a sense of relief and hope in her and thought to myself how important my commitment now was, I could not let Claudette down.

Over the next two years Claudette and I worked on this, understanding that what happened was not her fault, that there was nothing she could have done and that her husband would have wanted her to move on not only for herself, but for their daughter. The journey was indeed a hard one it was filled with a lot of self-realization moments, tears, and laughter. But eventually, she was able to empty those memories from her suitcase and keep all the good ones she had from the time she had with her husband. She was able to leave behind that part of her life and begin anew. Remarrying and having two more children and eventually becoming a social worker helping others as she once was.

Today as Claudette and I sit and think about our time together, our chance meeting at the luncheon, sitting next to me at the table and engaging in a conversation that would change her life we ponder on the whether this was chance or destiny. Was it meant to be or just happenstance? Regardless of why it happened we both agree that it was a moment that changed both of our lives. For me it allowed me to live out my purpose and validate what I do and for her it allowed her to live again, to love again.

Often, we believe that connecting with someone is just a pleasantry and that nothing comes from it, but the reality is every time we truly listen to someone, we are impacting them, we are valuing them and what they have to say, we are giving their story importance. We are giving the life of another purpose even if the storyteller does not believe that. Therefore, I continue to be passionate about what I do, helping others be able to live their best life and stop carrying a suitcase filled with negative baggage. Here is to leaving the necessary old behind and embracing the new.  Here is to leaving your mark through your words and your actions. Thank you Claudette for sitting next to me at the luncheon.