Strength

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt

A customer called me today, because she could not walk in to the bank. She had a rare and bizarre disease where her calf muscles had slowly disintegrated. She was now confined to a wheelchair, but was far too proud to call it that; she would say "assisted transportation chair". She was calling to order checks, but was unable to because her deceased husband was still on her account and legally we are unable to issue checks without removing him from the account.

"Listen here honey," she said. "We were married for 58 years, it'll be 59 in February. We were high school sweethearts; I was a cheerleader and he was a football player, can you imagine that? The American dream and baby we had it. If you think I'm taking his name off this account, you've got another thing coming. You know, at the end of his life he was diagnosed with Parkinsons. He'd see people. He'd ask me 'who are those children sitting at the coffee table, where did they come from?' and I'd play along, 'oh those are just the neighbor kids, you know how they are'. I could never play along for too long though, and I'd have to slip away to the bedroom. After he died my disease became worse, and the doctors are saying that soon I won't be able to walk. It's still hard to say," her voice started to quiver, "I'll never be able to walk again."

I told her, "I know you don't want to hear it, but it really could be worse. Think about how long you were able to walk, some people are born without that luxury."

She laughed a little, "I know a lady who just had twins conjoined at the head, and here I am complaining about these dumb legs of mine. Let me give you some advice: Use your legs while you got 'em, and love your man while you have him. Everything you love, everything you take for granted, will be gone before you know it."