By TAMMIE TOLE
A misbehaving heater in my Jeep once taught me a very valuable life lesson.
Typically, my maroon Liberty was as dependable as the day was long, but one bone-chilling, teeth-chattering night a few years ago, a little divine intervention put its heater in the fritz.
The day had been rough, and a last-minute assignment put me way behind on my to-do list. I left a late meeting and hustled home to pack for a whirlwind trip to Charleston, reviewing everything I would need a shoe-horn to squeeze into my schedule. I began to wilt under the weight of stories, editing, meetings and self-defeating doubts.
Wrapped up in worries, it took me a few minutes to realize that the air blowing inside my vehicle wasn’t any warmer than the air that nipped my nose outside. I fidgeted with every control on the dashboard, all to no avail. The fan was running, but the air it pushed from the Jeep’s innards was as frozen as the murky mist outside.
My already-dim disposition turned dismal. There was no way I could fit a trip to the garage in before leaving for the Capitol, and my resolve to conquer every enemy — even inanimate, automotive ones — was crumbling.
I started talking to God, and I wasn’t very nice. Mentally, I ran through a list of everything that had to be accomplished and ranted about how I was doing my best to do all things, but I couldn’t do them alone.
The instant those words were thought, as I hovered on the brink of an emotional breakdown and clutched the steering wheel with fingers that felt like icicles, my heater started working. It wasn’t the gradual warm-up that we all try to hurry in the winter; this time, the air rushing from the vents turned from cold to cozy in a moment.
Just as quickly, I learned my lesson, as I imagined God looking down and saying, “OK. Now that you get it, quit griping, take the helping hands you’re offered and get on with it.”
That heater never stopped working again. This week, I’ve thought a lot about that night, as I pondered the things for which I’m grateful.
They aren’t things at all; they’re the people behind those helping hands that my heater helped me remember. Though I still grumble when I’m stressed, I know there are people there to help, and I know I’m blessed beyond belief.
I have a Nanny who collected toboggans from every family member and required Cristi and I wear them all while we learned to roller-skate on concrete porches in the days before helmets were must-have accessories. Last week, she spent her time cutting marshmallows into 16 tiny pieces each and rolling them in flour, just so my nephew could take aim with his new marshmallow bow before anyone could run to the store for miniature versions.
This fall, Granddaddy harvested pumpkins and squash and kept vigil for bad spots until I needed them for a late-autumn work project, solely because I needed them. For several years now, he’s cut corn stalks and kept them for fodder shocks to display in our harvest photo shoot.
Mom still sends me lunch to work on occasion, over my objections that I’m perfectly capable of packing my own or making a trip to one of the restaurants that flank my office. Always handy with a phone, she’s become an excellent research assistant, and she’s one of my favorite column critics. If she cries when she reads it, I’ve touched one person.
Dad always reminds me that the road will probably be slick if it’s rained and that there’s likely ice on the sidewalk when it snows. In addition to providing daily reports on the conditions outside, he’s also become a great courier since he retired, making sure bills are sent, packages are picked up and the things I need, but can’t retrieve, are delivered.
My awesome extended family fusses when I stay away too long and never makes me wonder if I’m welcome.
I have friends who will help me hang curtains, fix a door, clean up hay, lend an ear, and heal my heart with hugs and hope. They remind me that love isn’t always easy, but the real kind is unconditional.
We share inside jokes and traditions that include Cherry Coke, Oreos, red hats and impressive renditions of a dying mouse king in “The Nutcracker” and John Black from “Days of Our Lives.” Two of us still burst into giggles at the mere mention of “egg shells,” for reasons not fit for print, and another humored me with an entire conversation this week about “hoop-snitchies.”
Each time I give thanks for each of these people and so many more, I realize again how right I was when I fired an angry prayer upward announcing that I couldn’t make it alone. These people warm my heart more surely than my heater thawed my toes that dark night years ago, and I am truly thankful. I just hope I can return the favors.
