Jill Zamoyta x The Giving Keys #Brave

I have

Gifted a Giving Key

With the word

BRAVE

My Story

I live in a small town up in the mountains. We still get all of our mail delivered to the post office only, so we have to make daily trips to get our mail. We get to know our mail workers very well seeing them every day and having that chat/small talk that you have with people you see often.

Our particular counterworker happens to be the mother of one of my former students (I used to teach at the middle school) from many years ago. I have particular compassion for our postal workers, especially up here, because they are so understaffed and overworked due to the state of the USPS, and having the pandemic on top of it, where they did not have the choice to work from home or to remain safe is unimaginable.

She's a quiet person most of the time, and lately, I have noticed that she has grown even quieter and more withdrawn and that her face is often tear-stained. I didn't want to pry, but I was extremely concerned for her, as her slight frame had grown to be gaunt, and she just looked so despondent, so I asked her if she was okay. 

She confided that her husband had died. They had been married for 30 years and raised three children. She began to cry as she was telling me and I didn't ask for any more details, I just told her that I had been and would continue to pray for her and that she is loved by all of us who know her.

Seeing her every day, she was never far from my thoughts, and I prayed about what I could do to help her in any way at all. I got one of your emails with the "brave" key in it, and I considered that she needed to know how brave she was for just showing up for her life every day in the face of not only devastating grief but also a pandemic.

She stopped me a few days later, tears streaming down her face, and told me that she had hung the key from her rear-view mirror. She told me, "You know, I've never thought of myself as being brave, but now I'm starting to believe that I am." 

Jill Zamoyta

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