| By Mike Tenbusch - Dec 9, 2008 7:45:49 AM ET |
Categories: Education, Volunteerism, Advocacy, Giving, How I Live United, Other, The LiveUnitedSEM Network
In a stormy sea.
And we owe each other
A terrible loyalty.
~G.K. Chesterton
I remember like it was yesterday the day my Dad came home in the summer of '81. He called us four kids into the living room to tell us that Ford had laid him off--but we were going to be OK. I didn't hear anything after the "but." I remember going up to my room and vowing that I would turn my paper route and lawn mowing money into groceries to provide for our family. It turned out my dad was right. He got a job teaching that fall at University of Detroit High again, and our family was fine. But the pain I felt that day, and the responsibility I assumed that day, would stay with me for a long time.
Twenty-four years later, on June 26, 2005, I lost my own job unexpectedly. I called my wife from the office and told her the news.
She gave me good advice: Don't let them see you cry. I took three hours to clean out my email inbox and to gather my stuff. When I got into the car, a song came on the radio that went, "There's a light at the end of this tunnel." I took that as a message from God and finally just broke down and cried, both from hurt and from an intense awareness of God's protection over me. Thankfully, it was a forty-minute ride home, so I was able to pull myself together before walking in the house. I don't think I ever loved my wife more than the look she gave when I came in the door that night.
At a board meeting for a nonprofit this week, the chair informed us that one of trustees had resigned from the board because "he took a buyout from Chrysler." Everyone in the room sat in stunned silence. We were instantly connected by a common bond: Pain for our friend, pain from our past, pain from the increasing news of neighbors, of parents of our kids' friends, and of other loved ones who are losing their jobs. It's a pain that's as palpable today as it was when I was a 12-year-old kid in the summer of '81.
It's almost incomprehensible how widespread that pain is stretching today. I remain convinced that some form of the American auto industry, and our region, will survive. Over time, we will be stronger. And our strength will come from the new ideas, new friendships, and new ways in which we look out for each other in these most challenging of times. Pain can unite us in a way that prosperity never did.
Comments are closed for this post.
Now is the time where educational preparedness is the key to overcoming so much potential pain and destitution. I see a wave coming and only those who are prepared to take on new roles and responsibilities will be able to keep their head above water. Thank goodness there is the United Way to dispatch some life boats and help pull people in, but there has to be something more for Michigan or we may end up in a situation very difficult to come back from. Thank you for your help and your insightful blog, which shows us how we are all connected and need to stay connected in our efforts to get back on a stable path. No one wants to get that call into the office or that pink slip. Let's try to be as ready as possible.
God is good and we KNOW that we are being helped in ways we don't even know yet ... And Den is very talented, with many transferable skills and talents, in addition to great "human" skills, so he'll be fine. He's looking at it as "re-inventing" himself. He just said this morning, his first of unemployment, "Hmmmm..I wonder what I'm going to be when I grow up" ... smiling all the while. A very new experience for him, as he's worked straight through from the farm, to high school & college, to the Air Force and beyond. So, it bites right now but (as I can reflect on two times when I was fired ... another story, another day) the reinvention part of how we develop after this kind of loss or change can be a bigger blessing than the previous work. So I'll pray that for Den and all of those others who are experiencing this "challenge" right now.