The broken spirit

I wrote three posts today.

Suggested reading order:

1. the-sea-of-abundance

2. where-is-sea-of-abundance?

3. This post

Astrid lost her husband in a motor vehicle accident while Kevin, her only child, was struggling a losing fight against a relapsed leukaemia. After the death of her son, she was so devastated. She could not concentrate on her highly-paid job and got fired.

Her spirit was broken. To keep paying the rent she had to take a low paying cleaning job. Her life was miserable. At times, she felt so low, she was thinking of ways to end her own life. Her spirit was broken.

The loneliness was unbearable. Weeks passed, months passed and everything seemed only to get worse every day. Her spirit was broken.

One day she was walking home, deeply depressed after long hours of her cleaning job.  A small cat, perhaps only a few weeks old, had followed her while she walked home. She had noticed the cat and walked a bit faster than usual, hoping the cat would stay behind. But the little cat followed her until she reached home. The kitten made its crying kitten sounds and somehow the heart of Astrid, the woman with the broken spirit got moved. She poured a bit of milk in a saucer and offered it to the kitten. The kitten purred.

That night, for the very first time since long, Astrid felt a bit less depressed. She went a few times to her doorstep and was each time happy that the kitten still was there. Before bedtime, she added a bit of milk.

The kitten had found a new home and Astrid had bought a few kitten things. Her week had been so different from the many weeks before. She thought by herself: if a simple kindness to a kitten can make such a difference for me, what could kind acts for fellow humans do to me?

She decided to spend the weekends helping out in a soup kitchen or going to wheel elderly from a nearby old folks home for a walk. She kept caring for the growing kitten. Her depression was fading and even though the memories of her only son and husband  came back regularly, bringing her to tears, her spirit was no longer broken.

She had found a new sense of purpose and not long after she found a better paying job in the old folks home. 

Astrid's spirit was no longer broken