Courage

There are a couple of women in my massage therapy class who are going through a divorce. R is 22 years old, was married for 3 years, has a 2 year old daughter. Turns out the ex just didn’t want to be married anymore, his family intervened on his behalf, and helped him to “escape” to another state where he filed for divorce. She traveled there this past week to finalize the process. D is 31 years old, has 4 kids, the oldest is 11, the youngest is 3. She grew up in St. David, about 50+ miles east of Tucson, small rural community. When school started in July, she was making the commute M-Thu driving 100 miles each day. She has since left her husband, but was unable to bring the kids with her because she didn’t have a job or even any money. Think: a home situation so intolerable that she was “forced” to leave her children behind. I say forced because sometimes we have to do what we have to do for our own safety. Her kids are safe, cared for…something that, for the time being, she is unable to do. She is living with one of our classmates, found a part time job here in town, commutes daily to St. David to see her kids. On Wednesday I saw her come into class with a black leather jacket on a hanger; she spoke to the instructor in hushed tones…it was about 5:58 pm. At 6, she got up in front of the class, described the jacket as being two years old, hardly worn, and it was for sale. She was asking $100. She paused, choked up, and said she needed the money for gas to go see her children the next day…she had no money. She apologized for crying. My heart just broke for her (as did everyone else’s!). I believe it took every ounce of courage, not to mention embarrassment, to stand there in front of her peers to sell an item, that I’m sure meant a lot to her. One of the guys asked permission to leave the class to go home for some money to give her for gas. I think several of us gave her what we could so she could at least make that trip one more time. It didn’t solve her problem but it gave her another day.

We continued the class discussing bone pathologies.