About Those Curmudgeons...

There is a woman at a local community agency with whom I have to interact fairly frequency in order to acquire some needs for the families that I work with(I am a Visiting Maternal Child Nurse). This woman is the very epitome of cruel at times. It is a challenge every time that I walk into her office to simply maintain my own friendly demeanor. Keeping a smile on my face becomes an epic battle.

And yet- I wonder each time how she came to be this way. Surely, to have once made the choice to have begun a career helping others must mean that there is a heart that beats for others somewhere in that cold barrel chest of hers.

So, each time, I find myself imagining the life that led her here. To this place where she can no longer rustle up kindness and compassion and is stuck in a self-imposed jail of anger. How awful these circumstances must have been. How awful it must be to now live a life of sarcastic frustration with all who come into her bubble of hate.

I wish that I had the words, the actions to make her teeny tiny Grinch heart grow. But, I do not. However, I can continue to have compassion for this curmudgeon.

I will fight to keep that smile on my face.

I will be kind, even when she is not.

I will leave her cold office a little warmer than it was before I entered.

Because it must be dreadfully awful to live in that place of hate. It must be frigid and lonely and sad.

Even curmudgeons need love. Every damn day.

Love on, Warriors.