Hideous Vs. Horrible

Just before Christmas, I was contacted by someone to send them a zombie gnome. I zombie up gnomes and garden rabbits to turn the cloying and trite into the hideous. As it turned out, I had three gnomes left: one very shattered, one cracked and one damaged. I explained this problem, then I tried to scare up a gnome. Much to my own surprise, I found one, zombied it up and shipped it off. The money dropped into my vacant PayPal account-- an account that sees too little activity. The buyer even paid me extra, so thrilled with the work.
I am handed a lot of things to fix that I would rather not touch. Conversely, there are a lot of things I want fixed that I can't fix. I find that when I can't fix something I try to compensate. I can't stop the cancer, but how about I drive you to ferry? You're relationship is ruined: would you like beer? I like to be able to mend stuff. But all things are impermanent: anything you fix will be wrecked again eventually.
This Christmas has felt like I was in a foxhole. My immediate family was okay, but all around us: cancer, marriages breaking-up and general unhappiness. So many unmendable situations around me.
Last night, I read this story about a Victoria family: four children with a one-month old, Molly Campbell, who has an aggressive form of leukemia. Friends of the family have put together the website to describe the family's plight. They have a page for donations and a Paypal link:


This money isn't needed to pay for Molly's health care: it's there to cushion the family in coming months as they commute to Vancouver for treatments, lose work and do all of the other things that come with trying to care for a sick baby and hold the rest of your life together. It's a horrible situation for this family to be in. I can't cure their daughter's cancer or make them unafraid, but I can offer the equivalent of a pint of beer or a drive to the ferry. I can't fix a lot of stuff, but I can still do something.
I can parlay money from my hideous zombie gnome to make the sting of 2011 less horrible for the Campbells.

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