The Mirrors To The Soul

When I am gone from this world, people will probably say Lu Anne always had a quick laugh and friendly smile.
I made up my mind years ago, that through tough times, a smile made people feel better and helped me through some rough spots.
When I had two small children, I needed to help to supplement our income. I did not want to go to work and leave my children with a sitter, so I decided to run a daycare center from my home. I took children on a daily basis, and for a week at a time while their parents went on vacation, and I also took a terminally ill two year old boy. He had brain cancer and had had surgery, but the prognosis was not good. His mother begged me to care for him while she taught school. It was imperative that she work because of the medical bills. At first I told her that I just couldn’t. I was scared to death that another child would hit him in the head with a toy and severely hurt him. After I had a serious talk with my husband, he said to go ahead and take him, but give him and his brothers time to make him his own playground in our back yard. They fenced it off away from the other kids swing set, made him his own sand box and safer toys. It was wonderful. He could watch the other children play, and I let one or two little ones play with him at a time. Kevin stayed with me about a year before he died. I will never forget that little boy. I always thought that God had helped make it possible for me to care for him. Smiles on the days he was there were hard to wear.
I often think, if people were really in tune with me, they would know that I may be smiling on the outside, but if they would just look in my eyes, they had to know how sad I was.
I worked in long term care for almost twenty years. I often wondered if I made a difference in those peoples lives. I know that they made a difference in my life. I would laugh with them and they with me; sometimes it was so difficult. At times I wondered when I stepped in the door if there was anything that I could laugh at that day. I always found something.
I wasn’t feeling well for awhile. One day the nurse at the nursing home where I worked sent me home. She said I was staggering and that I needed to make a doctor’s appointment. I was surprised. I felt alright, not super, but alright. But I did what she asked. After some tests and quite a long period of time, the neurologist said I had Multiple Sclerosis. I laughed. I was so happy. He said that that was the most unusual reaction to that diagnosis he had ever seen. I told him I was so relieved it wasn’t brain cancer, any other diagnosis was a blessing.
One day after being married to my husband for almost twenty years, he asked for a divorce. He said he couldn’t live with the diagnosis of M.S. Of course, that was a lie, but be that as it may. I didn’t think I would ever see anything funny in life again. But once again, I put on my mask of “Normal” and took one day at a time. People thought I was adjusting well. They weren’t there in the middle of the night when I would cry out, “Why, Why?” One day I started laughing. I thought “you hate mustard in your potato salad. She puts mustard in her potato salad. Hope you’re happy.”
Someone once said that the eyes are the Mirror of the Soul, My thought to that is, “People, you need to look, really look into people’s eyes and then you will see either the reflection of your own emotions or the real image of the eyes that you are looking into and act accordingly.”
I have a very good friend that always knows when something is wrong just by looking at me. There is a similar phrase that says, “the face is a picture of the mind as the eyes are it’s interpreter.” How very very true.