Gold and Gone

Two notable things happened today:  Michael Phelps won his 19th Olympic medal and the Irish Author Maeve Binchy died.  Now, I happen to admire Phelps' accomplishments and love to read Binchy's novels, so it was a bittersweet day for me.  I know, you're thinking, what does a 27 year old Olympic swimmer have in common with a 72 year old novelist (besides the fact that their ages have the same numbers)?  Binchy's books are all about community, how everyone pulls together and supports each other through life's ups and downs, and about how people find themselves and their life's true path.  In this Olympics, Michael Phelps is a real life character from one of Binchy's novels.  Everything I've read says that Phelps is different in London than he has been in any other Olympics.  He's less focused on himself and his performance, and has become a huge part of the American team.  He's taken one for the team, and pulled one out of you-know-where for them.  He's roused his teammates to win for America.  Everyone's noticed the change.  So, when Michael Phelps won his 19th medal today, making him the most decorated Olympian ever, it was like the last chapter of one of Maeve Binchy's books.  All of America watched our hometown boy choke up during the National Anthem, and search out his Mom in the crowd, and we were proud of him.  Not because he is, hands down, one of the best athletes ever (we knew that last Olympics), but because he is one of us, part of our community.

The parallels I can draw from Maeve Binchy and Michael Phelps and the Trenches are endless.  Binchy's stories, like Michael Phelps at this Olympics, are all about rebirth and redemption.  It's what we hope for our clients here in the Trenches.  We hope that they take the experience that brought them to us and learn and grow from it, going on to reinvent their lives and their families after they leave us.  We hope they have the support of their community, but what Binchy and Phelps showed us is as they change through experience, so do their communities.  Maybe they find acceptance with a different community, or maybe they find comfort where they've always been but maybe didn't appreciate.  Perhaps, like Phelps, they seem so alone but learn to reach out to others.  For a while, we here in the Trenches are their community.  We support them. listen to them, advise them in order for them to walk firmly and confidently down their path.  We want their lives to be like the last chapters of a Binchy novel or Phelps winning his 19th medal. We want them to leave us and find their place in their world. It's because we care - here in the Trenches.