Partners with Modest Needs
In this column, you will find inspirational pieces offering an in-depth look at the personal stories of individuals, families and small non-profit organizations who have requested help from Modest Needs - and the miracles made possible by your giving.
The Flip Side of a Tragedy | 2008-11-13 13:28
Do you think that people who feel the most pain in this world can also feel the most kindness?
I do. You might even say that I cling to that notion -- to the idea that applicants who've lived through unimaginable misery will ultimately experience your goodwill and generosity in some larger way. That's certainly my hope for Marion, a widow from New Hampshire whose car repair you funded a few weeks ago. Her application contained only the barest of details, but more than enough to convey the vastness of her despair: husband passed, sick kids, car repair. The universe just wouldn't give Marion a break. If anyone deserved an infusion of kindness, it was this very special woman.
Marion and her husband Leo never had much. She was a nurse; he was a truck-driver. They couldn't afford fancy gifts or amusement parks for their children, Olivia and Leo. But they'd always made ends meet, even with the mysterious illnesses that had plagued their kids from a young age. As a toddler, their firstborn Olivia fell prey to a series of ear infections so serious that she eventually lost 90% of her hearing in one ear. Furthermore, at the tender age of 3, after copious visits to the gastroenterologist, she was also diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
A few years later, their next child Leo would also fall victim to chronic ear infections, although these would seem minor in relation to his other medical problems. When Leo was a mere 4 years old, doctors discovered that the little boy had a life-threatening heart arrhythmia -- the kind to blame for those mysterious cardiac arrests experienced by teenagers on the playing field. The arrhythmia would mean a lifetime of monitoring for Leo...and a lifetime of anxiety for his mother.
If that weren't enough, another terrible trauma befell Leo shortly after his arrhythmia diagnosis: a dangerous tumble down a steep staircase at home. 'Right after the fall, he said he wanted to go to sleep,' Marion remembered. 'As a nurse, I knew the warning signs.' And she was right. Leo had not only fractured his skull, but he'd incurred a bleed in his young brain.
Marion threw on her clothes, rushed him to the local hospital and was instructed to drive him immediately to Boston for brain surgery. As they ushered Leo into surgery for a craniotomy that would remove half of his skull, doctors made remarks to Marion like, 'We can't make you any promises,' and 'This surgery is like removing gum from tissue paper.' She and her husband were in shock. Miraculously, after hours and hours, the surgeons did manage to control Leo's bleeding, and he came through the operation without any obvious neurological damage.
Any parent knows how excruciating it can be when your child experiences pain -- much worse than if you were fighting it off yourself. Well, Marion was drowning in this kind of anguish. She and her husband had endured a lifetime's worth of worry about their kids. And their children weren't even 10 years old yet.
I wish I could stop the unraveling of Marion's story here. Because, if you can believe it, Marion's greatest tragedy was still yet to come.
In the autumn of 2001, Marion's husband fell asleep early one evening. For the first time in 10+ years of marriage, Marion opted for the couch. Meanwhile, young Leo slept in bed with his dad, curled around his body. When Marion woke the next morning, her daughter Olivia was in a panic, explaining that her father wasn't breathing. Marion flew into the bedroom, and was devastated to find that her husband Leo must have had died shortly after falling asleep. His body had already started showing the gruesome physical signs of death.
Not only had Marion become a widow at 35 years old... but doctors were never able to tell her why her husband Leo had died. And her children had experienced the horror of finding their father's body.
'That image will never leave us,' she said sadly.
Seven years later, the family's wounds are still fresh. They continue to grieve his loss. As Marion described him, (Big) Leo was a little rough around the edges. Think lots of tattoos. But he was also a man remembered for his remarkable kindness. A few months before his death, he'd been in a serious truck accident in which he'd chosen to ram the Jersey barrier and endanger his own life rather than risk jackknifing, which would have flung his cargo of sheetrock toward drivers in the oncoming lane.
'That's just the kind of person he was,' Marion remarked.
Both traumatized children required years of therapy. Marion was destroyed emotionally and fearful about her new role as a single parent. Her son Leo's heart condition still presented a daily worry. And, with one less salary coming in, money started running short. Very short.
Since then, Marion and her family have subsisted on her husband's Social Security death benefits, which don't leave much room for unexpected expenses. They live modestly, in a trailer Marion purchased after her husband died. (She couldn't face going back to the home where he passed away.)
2008 has been especially difficult on them. Leo, now 11, is displaying severe learning disabilities -- possibly a result of his fall down the stairs as a toddler -- and continues to require invasive ear surgeries. Olivia, meanwhile, has fallen into a rough group of friends as she enters high school. To her mother's horror, she was recently caught shoplifting. Olivia explained to a judge why she'd do such a thing by saying, simply, 'because my mom doesn't have the money to buy me any clothes.'
'You can imagine how difficult that was to hear, as a parent,' Marion said.
Something had to give. Marion was having a hard time affording groceries. She had lost 30 pounds from the stress alone. She'd felt compelled to quit her nursing job to get the children back on track at home. And then came the last straw: the car broke down.
Marion had absolutely nothing left to pay for the $721.48 repair. Getting to the grocery store she could manage, thanks to the graciousness of neighbors willing to provide rides. But a much more important consideration were the children's doctor's appointments -- literally dozens of them every year. With Boston Children's Hospital more than an hour away, it was quite a favor to ask of anyone. In the long-run, how would she get them to the ear and cardiac and psychological specialists who'd seen them for years?
She would apply for a Modest Needs grant, that's how.
And you, our donors, would make sure that Olivia and Leo didn't miss one appointment.
Marion's application was funded in no time. And things have been looking up from there. With the car repair off her mind, Marion managed to save up enough extra cash to stockpile some food and fix the damaged insulation that had left her trailer cold all last winter. And, of course, she's taking Leo and Olivia to the doctor every time they need to go.
'I just couldn't stop crying when I read the email that I'd been funded,' Marion said. 'I felt like the weight of the world was lifted off me. I can't tell you how many rosaries I said. I wish that I could write a thank-you note to every donor who gave. I wish that I could do something -- anything -- to let people know how much this has meant to us.'
Early on in our conversation, Marion had said to me, sadly, 'Nothing has been normal for us. Nothing.' In all my years interviewing Modest Needs applicants, few have experienced such a long and catastrophic string of misfortune -- and so many events that defy explanation, like the sources of her children's illnesses and her husband's passing.
But amid all this misery, and after relaying to me so many intimate and painful details of her life, Marion positively lit up when she spoke about the strangers who'd contributed toward her application. She was just gushing. It was as if she'd seen a glimmer of the flip side of her tragedy. It was as if she'd been reminded that, despite losing her best friend and facing a tough financial road ahead, she's not alone in the world anymore.
And that, my friends, is how $721 can change a life.
