What Matters

Tonight, 8/18/09, we had the best crowd we've had in the several months we’ve been working this Lubbock Phoenix Employment Project. I can almost say without hesitation that 100% of the people who attended walked away with a job. I can say without equivocation that 100% of the people who attended left with hope.

The panel consisting of Charlene from Wells Fargo, Jeremy from O’Hair Shutters and Pierce from itsQuest,Inc. were engaging, funny, talkative and embraced by the audience. The audience asked tough questions, asked tons of questions and stayed on track.

All two of them.

We had two people show up and as Diana, one of the participants, left she hollered across the parking lot "Thanks, Rex, I really enjoyed this. It lifted my spirits. It gave me hope." I think she'll be employed later this week as she has a discussion with Pierce and it's bound to yield results. David, too, showed up for his second go around dressed, as usual, impeccably. I think he'll be switching jobs to something much better shortly. David's too intense not to believe he's destined to do something.

None of the preceding mattered that much to me tonight. I wasn't present. I wasn't engaged. I was distant. A friend of mine, Cindy, is in trouble. I lost my best friend to lung cancer when I was 33, twenty years ago; he was 44. Now Cindy, roughly my age, has colon cancer, the stuff that Farrah fought mightily and lived with until her death a few weeks ago.

The following has nothing to do with jobs. It has nothing to do with employment. I guess it could be construed as an argument for or an argument against "healthcare" reform, but it's not intended as either.

Over the past two years, I've often heard others like me on the sideline cheering Cindy on and saying, "I wish I could do something to help."

When my wife and I went to visit her a month or so ago we suddenly knew what we could do. We could brighten her life by getting her home back to an earlier splendor, take care of some things that have gone to the wayside as she focuses her life energy on treatment and has focused money on medical expenses marked "co-pay, out-of-network, not covered."

And so we started things moving. We have stripped off wallpaper, pulled up carpet, patched holes, floated walls and put on fresh coats of paint. And we're just getting started. I'm tiling her dining room now and shortly will move her cherished Grandmother's dining table back into a room that will no doubt make "Grandma C" smile from above. And when we get her Grandmother's beautiful atrium doors hung I think we'll hear "Grandma C" laugh out loud with joy.

Yes, you heard right: her Grandmother's atrium doors. Years back Cindy pulled them out of attic storage and carted them from Iowa with a dream of one day having them hung in her Lubbock home!

And we're working to "Raise those Doors" and make her dream come true!

Over the years, I have been involved in a lot of volunteer efforts, like Lubbock Phoenix. But for me, this one is like no other. The joy I feel as I watch Cindy focus, even for a moment, on paint colors instead of chemo, ceramic tile options instead of liver scans and window coverings instead of test results has more than offset the sore back and aches in muscles I forgot I even had!

I've opened a bank account at First Bank & Trust. I'm working toward a goal of $5,000. I hope some of my friends will help. I'm hoping 5,000 people will contribute $1 or 1 person will contribute $5,000. I'm hoping others share my desire to bring beauty into this ugliness that is cancer. Email rdecastle@suddenlink.net and I’ll send you instructions to electronically transfer money, if you’d like to contribute, or mail me a check at First Bank & Trust made out to Cindy Lucas.

That's why I was distant tonight at the Lubbock Phoenix Employment Project. That's why I wasn't engaged. I offer my apologies to the great folks who were there. Tomorrow will be a better day. That's what I hear Cindy say the nights when I pack up my tools and head home. "Rex, tomorrow will be a better day."

Hope like that we can live with.