Ease One Life The Aching

If I can stop one heart from breaking, 
I shall not live in vain. 
If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin
 Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain. 

–Emily Dickinson



My circadian clock having been set permanently by years of farming, I arise early and go for walks. 

One late December morning while strolling along, I ruminated about how past failures could be converted to future successes, yet knowing from experience that few human endeavors temporarily relieve but end up deluding people more than New Year’s Resolutions. Humorist Mark Twain said that all a man needs is ignorance and confidence — then success is sure. Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi’s advice to his players was more succinct: “Quitters never win and winners never quit.”

But the best advice I recalled that morning came from writer Orison Swett Marden, who is often referred to as the founder of America’s Twentieth Century Success Movement. Among his most notable quotes are: “Nobody has a corner on success. It is his who pays the price”; “people must make the most possible out of what’s been given them. This is success — there is no other”; “no man fails who does his best”; “a will finds a way.”

 Encouraged by these observations, I scribbled several New Year’s “Not To’s”: I resolve not to talk about myself; not to just hear, but listen; not to just see, but observe; not to continue being an old dog reluctant to learn new tricks; not to worry instead of praying. Not to … not to … not to … so many promises came to mind that I almost resolved not to make any resolutions. That is, until the woman appeared. I had seen her several times during the morning walks. Old, shriveled, in clothes worn out with care, her head hidden in a hood, bent over a cane, she searched for coins anywhere others might have dropped them — in mall parking lots, along sidewalks, and other places. In past encounters, I ignored her, but it was the Christmas season. Instead of my usual Scrooge indifference, I strode up to her and extended a $20 bill. Clutching the money to her breast in trembling hands, she raised her head, and from within the ragged hood’s black void, a beautiful smile that probably hadn’t shone for years appeared, and in a tender, emotion-strangled voice, she said, “Oh, Mister, thank you, thank you so very much.”

 ' As I watched her fade into the lonely darkness, I sensed a level of peace in my soul that I have rarely known, which prompted me to discard the long list of resolutions and replace it with a single promise to myself: Face each new day, resolving not to let it go by without striving to make it a happy one for a fellow human being. In some small way, I hope to do what Emily Dickinson’s poetry does: ease one life the aching.