Experience reinforces we’re all in this life together

When I retired, a wise, previously-retired friend had counseled me to do nothing obligatory for six months.  Golf.  Attend all my grandkids’ activities.  Read books I had planned on reading, but haven’t.  Take old friends to lunch. Plant a garden. Cook time-consuming, exotic dinners I’d not previously attempted.  Sleep in.

So I did.

At the end of six months, I was ready for some action, so I became a reading helper in my granddaughter’s second grade class and lunch server on Tuesdays at Poulsbo’s Resource Recovery Cafe.  The second graders have reminded me how lucky I was to have active, loving, well-centered parents, consistent meals, and visions of a life ahead without trauma or failure.  The Cafe has reminded me how life is a game of inches, and I could easily be on the other side of the serving table. 

Through my years as Poulsbo Municipal Court judge, I had come to know some of my Tuesday lunch eaters.  Some for years.  My initial introduction was “This is our new Tuesday volunteer, Jeff.  He’s’ the first judge who ever threw me in jail, and because I hated it and learned my lesson, he is the last judge who ever threw me in jail.”

One eater asked, as I was serving him a tasty minestrone soup, “Did you throw me in jail five or six times?” I replied, “Six, I think.  How many of those did you deserve?”  He smiled, winked and responded, “Every one of them.”

Tuesday lunches have been a great blessing for me.  I get an often-needed recalibration about things in my life I take for granted.  One member had an interview to see if he would live in a new abode.  The interview result may be the difference between him living in an apartment or his car.  Thinking about his potential, different life courses, my ten-foot putt or what I was cooking for dinner didn’t seem important - or stressful.

I have very much enjoyed seeing the community among the members.  Frequently they will congratulate each other on a positive step in life or a clean-and-sober mark met.  Recently a member got into a carpenter apprentice program.  Another is taking steps to enter Olympic College.  Eleanor Roosevelt once opined that “comparison is the killer of joy.”  Seeing communities grow, without comparison or jealousy, is a lesson we all need reminded of weekly.

Years ago, one of my best friends was dying of lung cancer.  I knew him well enough — and we were open enough — to ask him how it felt to be dying.  He replied, “Throughout your life you are told ‘we are all in this life together.’  When you’re moving towards the end it feels like ‘we are all in this world alone.’”

As I serve lunch and chat with the members, I realize that many are living exactly the opposite of my ailing friend. Many of them lived much of their lives feeling like “we are in this world alone.”  As they meet and share and treat and eat with their recovery community members, I see and feel an increasing sense of “we are all in this world together.”  And with that, the sky is the limit.

I am honored to be a small part of the second graders’ Tuesday and one of the recovery communities, and appreciate more than they know, the experiences, accomplishments, and challenges the students and members share with me.  

We will all learn and grow ... together ... one Tuesday at a time.