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All It Takes
“I know I’ll be okay,” my client said, breaking the silence that hung between us.
He was wearing a smile I hadn’t seen before; as he spoke, the worry lines on his forehead seemed to melt away.
“I know somehow that I’ll be okay,” he declared a second time, referring to the possibility that his recent illness might prevent him from ever returning to a job which he enjoyed, and which supported his family.
It’s true, I thought. I understand what he’s found. I know the truth of that feeling.
In the silence that encircled us, our eyes met and we shared a smile.
My work with him is mostly done, I thought.‘Okay’ will show him a way… it’s all it takes.
That was yesterday.
Today, I am gazing out my office window at a thick pall of wildfire smoke writhing through the hill of live oak behind my house. My thoughts drift to the endless streams of news and alerts about the insatiable fires razing homes, lives, and wildlands across California, now including one a dozen miles west of my home.
Today, the planet aches and my world is anything but okay.
A dark longing and insecurity slips through the window and wraps itself around me. I glance at the pair of green emergency ‘go bag’ back-packs by the front door. When my wife and I packed…
