Recession Taxi

I pulled the Windstar into the garage.

It was the end of a not especially lucrative day, but there was pot roast in the slow cooker.

I grabbed my bags and walked to the elevator. When I got off, I decided to check the mail. It was still sitting there in the box and as I thumbed through the catalogues and other junk, there was this letter. It was to my wife from some address I didn’t recognize, in Lake Zurich, IL. I held it in my hands. It had some heft to it. I ran my fingers across the front. There was something in there. I could feel it.

You got this, I said, handing it to my wife, as I put my things down. She looked at the return address, just as baffled as I. She tore open the envelope. Inside was some kind of card and a short, single-spaced letter.

Dear Tamara,

I read your article in yesterday’s Tribune…

My wife wrote this commentary about our family’s struggle in this recession. It ran in the Sunday paper, on the op-ed page.

It’s frightening how we all have fallen into a false sense of security as we go about our day-to-day lives.

Writing—be it a commentary, a short Tweet, a Facebook update or blog post—has become a recession tonic for us, a lifeline to sanity in a stormy time. Something happens when you remove the filter and plunge, really plunge, into the weeds of your situation in a public way and explore your fear, vulnerability, outrage and despair. You feel a little less alone, a little more able to endure. But you’re also more vulnerable to the unexpected bursts of silence and solidarity expressed, directly and indirectly, by friends, family and complete strangers.

My husband is in sales, and although he still has his job, revenue is down and so is the change in our pockets.

I’ve been struck by people’s response to our situation, especially as it’s grown more dire. Many friends and family have been right there, reaching out, steadfast:

“Hang in there.” “We’re thinking about you.” “You’re gonna get through this.”

Others, though, have kinda disappeared.

It’s really tempting to develop hard feelings about this.

But the reality and complexity of life cautions against it.

We read on, together now on the couch.

I’m enclosing a $25 dollar gift card to Jewel to help you and your family put some food on the table. It’s not much, but it’s what we can afford to give right now.

We looked at the gift card that had fallen out of the envelope, stunned.

This unexpected expression of kindness and compassion from a total stranger got me thinking.

How easy is it, in calmer times, to develop this heroic narrative about how you yourself would respond in a crisis, be it your own or that of someone you care about?

In my somewhat grandiose story, I’m the courageous, call anytime guy, coming to the rescue, day or night, in whatever way the situation requires.

Ha!

The problem with that fantasy is that it basically overlooks the messiness and struggle of daily life.

People are damn busy.

They have jobs, families, pets, relatives, mortgages, cars on the fritz, friends to see, errands to run, groceries to buy, meals to make and a million other things to do that make it hard to see anything, other than what’s right in front of them.

On top of that, it’s just hard to know the right thing to do or say, when people you love are suffering.

So sometimes, you don’t say anything.

I know. I’ve done it.