Do Unto Others

Yesterday I met a woman roughly my age, albeit several years younger, who suffers from a disease that is slowly dismantling her body. After reading an online appeal from a community do-gooder explaining that this particular woman needs some company as her husband works and thus she is left alone much of the time with her diminishing ability for self-care, I volunteered to be her "visiting companion" for three hours one day every week. Literally, that's the least I can do. 

Despite the fact that I know it is a basic tenet of humanity that we should help those less fortunate, and that there but for the grace of God go I, and giving of yourself is the greatest gift of all, I'm dreading it because I know it will depress the hell out of me. But for what amounts to a mere 1/56th of a week I will be helping a stranger live her sad, shrunken life and hopefully inject it with some mirth. (I did make her laugh a couple of times at our initial meeting.) 

I ask myself: what else would I do with those three hours? Take care of my pitifully small needs by paying some bills, changing the cat litter, coloring my hair? Yes, I will come home after those three hours and weep for awhile. But I weep just watching the news -- possibly for a longer time -- and that's not helping anyone, including me.