What I learned from Bernie

Last week I was contacted by one of our own who suffered a house fire. She is a part time social worker, in addition to 2 other jobs she holds to keep her family in a comfortable "safe" home. She is married with 2 boys and she lost all her belongings including their family pets in this fire that started at 4:00AM while they were all sleeping. As a social worker she deals with loss on a daily basis with her clients, so she told me, "I should know how to handle this better", but as we all know when faced with a tragedy yourself, no words can describe the grief or our process for dealing with it.

Bernie showed up at Wear 'n Share in her mother's SUV expecting a few bags of clothing to begin to rebuild her life. From the moment I met her, I wished I could do more as she fell apart crying with our first hug. You could just see the weight of the world on her face, but all she kept saying was “I can’t believe all this!” While we normally just provide clothing for our clients, I spent the next few days after our conversation reaching out to our Clarence community to pull together some household items, cleaning supplies, bedding, etc. As always, I too was overwhelmed, but not surprised at how our friends and neighbors can come together to help a family in need. We are truly blessed by the people we know and who come through for us time and again.

I learned a lot about Bernie as we searched through bras and underwear for her and picked out hats and gloves for the family. Her home had been her husband’s parents who were missionaries. They took over the mortgage and just never bothered to purchase homeowners insurance, something she feels so guilty about. As I mentioned, she works 3 jobs, but admittedly didn’t save a dime. She said how ridiculous it seems now that they had to have a 60 inch T.V. instead of purchasing insurance. The guilt hits her again while she says this and she has to have a moment to gather herself. I shared my speech with her about how I know it’s hard to see right now, but there is a reason for this and she will understand in time. The words felt hollow, as I felt there was nothing I could really say to ease her grief. And then I told her about when my step-sister who is a Doctor was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully she is now a “survivor”, but as horrible as it all was, she can now look back on her experience and say it has changed her in so many positive ways. One being, that she is so much more empathetic with her patients who she used to be so clinical with when going through such life-threatening tragedies. So I said maybe this will help you to have a new understanding and compassion for your clients and be able to help them in ways you were never able to before. And then I thought in my head, maybe it’s a reminder to us all about what’s really important, the latest iphone or in her words, “60 inch T.V.”, or is it more about ensuring our family is taken care of and our kids are safe. We as a society have become overwhelmed with “keeping up with the Jones’” so to speak, and making sure we have everything and more for our families. What can we all lose by putting greed before need? Thank you Bernie, for reminding me.

I’m sharing Bernie’s story with all of you, first of all, to thank those of you who dropped things off with me throughout the night and this morning and those of you who keep Bernie and her family in your prayers. It truly means more than I can say. But also, to remind us all about what’s really important, so that maybe Bernie’s story can touch us a little the way you have all touched her.

When she left today we hugged and we both cried of course. I told her “I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but you’re going to be okay”, and for the first time since I had spent with her, she smiled a small but beautiful smile and said, “You know, for the first time since this happened I actually feel like that’s true, for what you did for me today.” And I walked away thinking, we gave her so much more than clothing, shoes, towels, and “things”, we gave her hope.