"Not all of us can do great things.
But we can do small things with great love."
-- Mother Teresa
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| Wire hangers 10-20-14 |
"If I give all I possess to the poor
and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,
but do not have love, I gain nothing."
-- 1 Corinthians 13:3
When it's all said and done, my life probably won't leave much of a mark on the world.
In the grand scheme of humanity, I am a pretty damned small, insignificant potato.
When I see the Mother-Teresa-sized greatness of what some people do to inspire hope or elicit change or otherwise help the neediest needy among us, I feel very small indeed.
I'm not a humanitarian or a visionary or a hero.
The stuff I do isn't world-scale stuff.
This weekend, for example. Nothing I did was a very big deal. At all.
Here's a rundown:
I yelled and cheered like a damn fool when Leo busted through the line and sacked the shit out of the the opposing quarterback Friday night.
Big deal.
I ironed all my guys' dress shirts.
Big deal.
I made pancakes and sausage for Sunday breakfast.
Big deal.
I cooked my husband a big homemade steak-pineapple-basil pizza with no sauce, just how he likes it. It was all his. He didn't have to share it with anyone. He got the whole thing to himself.
Big deal.
I bought my neighbor, Rick, a six-pack of beer. We had a gas leak because the idiots who hooked up the new stove had their heads up their asses. Rick works for the gas company and came to the rescue and fixed the problem at no charge.
Big deal.
I wrote a couple of blog posts that only a very few people (and by few, I mean few) will ever read or care about.
Big deal.
I talked to my son Sam on the phone. He's at college and is stressed as fuck under the extreme weight of the intense course load he's carrying. He unloaded, I listened. I tossed in a little inappropriate humor and juicy gossip, and by the end of our conversation Sam was laughing -- like really hard snort-laughs. And he asked me to send him some homemade oatmeal cookies. I'll do that today.
Big deal.
I told you it was all small stuff.
But I can honestly say that I did all of those small things because I felt great love, or gratitude, or some other really good feeling, for each and every one of the people I did them for.
When it's all said and done and my life is up in smoke, I don't give a fiddler's fuck if anyone remembers a single thing I said or did.
What I do hope they remember, though, is how I made them feel.
And I hope I made them feel a little loved.
That'd be a really big deal.
