It's Nice to Have Support

"You never appreciate something until it's gone."  "It's easy to take the small things for granted."  Have you every realized any of those sayings?  I took a lot of things for granted during my 13 years of marriage to Jason.  Well, maybe not for granted, but we were so in-sync and were real partners that a lot of things that we did during our marriage was seamless and natural.  Now that he's gone, my family and friends have slid into the void created by his death.  How you ask?  Here are two examples:

1.  This past Thursday I had a lunch meeting with my new principal and other teachers from my building.  It was okay to bring kids, but I RSVP'd that I had coverage.  My mom had agreed to watch them for the time I was at the meeting (which was great because she hadn't seen them a lot over the summer).  When I arrived at her house at 11:30 to drop off the kids, no one answered the door. I was a little confused because we had talked about it Tuesday night during dinner at her house.   Her cell phone went straight to voicemail, and I really couldn't remember her house number.  I called my older sister to confirm the house number and she asked me what was going on.  After briefly explaining what was going on, Kirsten said, "Well, if you can't get in touch with her I could probably rearrange some things here at work and take them to lunch and afterward get in touch with mom."  The kids ended up eating lunch with Kirsten and some co-workers and did very well after the disappointment and worry about not being at Nana's house (Caroline was worried because, "Nana never forgot them").  Of course they had been threatened with the possibility of having all electronics sold if they argued or made Kirsten's lunch miserable because they picked on each other.  I'm sure I could've shown up with my two kids at the luncheon, but it was nice to have my someone pinch hit.  By the way, Kirsten found my mom.  It was her volunteer day at the hospital and she honestly thought the day was next week.  Oh well.

2.  My car's air conditioner isn't blowing very well.  It's cool (thanks Kody and Kevin!), but even on the highest setting it's not blowing well.  So, I took it up to the dealership today to drop it off and had to leave it there.  Knowing that I needed a car next week I wasn't sure if I could leave it, but then I realized that I could borrow Jason's Charger from Dana if I needed to.  Sure enough, I am going to need to because I didn't get the car in early enough so they'll look at it  on Monday.  I also have an extended warranty on the car (I fought really hard to get it when I bought the car), but I can't find the paperwork.  The information was a simple phone call away, but you know those days when that "simple phone call away" is a BIG DEAL?  That was today.  The "I've-Been-Running-All-Day" Day, and just one more thing seemed like a gargantuan deal.  Kevin took care of it.  He called the dealership where I got the car and checked into the warranty, and sure enough it's 75,000 miles or 5 years.  So now, all I have to do is call my service guy and give him the information and he'll work with them to get the car taken care of.

Jason would have been there to help out with both of those situations if he'd been here, because that's the kind of marriage we had.  It might sound like no big deal, but I've seen some people's marriages where that's not the case.  I'm just glad that I've got people around me who'll help when I need it, all I have to do is ask.  And if the person I ask can't help, then there's always at least 5 more people I can ask.  I'm bound to find someone. 

So if you know of a single mom or dad who doesn't have a very good support system for one reason or another, think about being there for them.  They may never ask you for a thing, but at least they'll have some peace of mind knowing they have someone to ask.