The power of plant-based eating, friendship and the pink jacket

Well, it’s Tuesday, and as strange as it may seem, Tuesday is one of my favourite days of the week.  For five years now, every Tuesday, right after my yoga class at Modo Yoga, I head to a local deli to pick up my Meals on Wheels lunch delivery that I distribute throughout Rutland.  I have met some wonderful people on my route over the years;  a 97 year old woman, who is a former world war pilot, and her daughter, who now looks after our pooch when we go away,  a 93 year old woman who lived in her own home, gardened and grew hundreds of dahlias every year.

I have to  confess that I have had some philosophical issues with the food I am delivering as sometimes I think I am doing a disservice by filling these seniors’ bellies with heavily meat based meals when I am all about the health benefits of a plant-based lifestyle.  A few times I actually have considered quitting and finding another organization to volunteer with.  What I have come to realize though, is that it is not only the food, but the conversation and sharing that makes such a big imprint on people’s lives.   Some of the people I visit have no one else coming into their home on a regular basis.  Sometimes our conversation is the only access they will have to the outside world that day.  I have also realized that in a small way my conversations around food can educate people about the choices they make every day and how those choices can have a huge effect on their health.

Every Tuesday I am fortunate to spend time with Rhonda, my favourite “prior Meals on Wheels client”. Rhonda is now plant based… so instead of me bringing her the Meals on Wheels food, I take her my plant based meals for the week.  🙂  She has become a true friend and we have a chance to spend an hour or so together each week talking about life, love and family, about struggles and hopes for the future.  She is a kind, gentle soul who has a past and a present touched by abuse, eating disorders, depression and bipolar disorder.  We couldn’t be more different, yet we are the same.  For two years, I just came to her door once a week, made small talk and dropped off her meal.  Then one day, she commented on the pink winter jacket I was wearing and said if I ever didn’t want it any more, she would absolutely love to have it.  That struck me like a truck.  My $40, Forever 21 jacket that I had bought in both pink and navy without even thinking, was admired so much by someone that she dreamed of having one.  And she had complimented me in the most sincere and genuine way.

For the next couple of weeks, I worked on finding the same jacket for her.  When I told some good friends the story, we pulled together some clothes, new winter boots and some kick ass runners for her.  The next Tuesday, Rhonda’s reaction was one I wasn’t expecting.  It was November, so nearing Christmas.  She broke down crying saying that even for Christmas her family didn’t really exchange gifts or celebrate much because they just didn’t have the funds.  She said she was so humbled that someone who hardly knew her would care that much.  She said that our kindness had affected her in ways that I would never know.  What it did for me, was reaffirm that the life I am so fortunate to lead is meant to be shared… to make others feel good and lift them up.   When you share your kindness, you just never know what path it will lead you both down.

So, fast forward a year and a half.  Rhonda, who expressed to me that she really wanted to take hold of her life and make positive changes, has done just that.  She told me back in the spring that she had a plan to quit smoking…to go from 34 cigarettes a day to 0.  34 cigarettes,  I mean what the hell?  Now that is an addiction!  She had written it all out, how she would gradually decrease by a certain amount each week over the spring and summer so that by August she would be a non-smoker.  Around the same time, Rhonda and I had been doing a lot of discussing about plant-based diets and her interest in not eating meat or dairy.  She spoke of days gone by when she was vegetarian and spent time in Costa Rica and Mexico learning about herself and living a spiritual life.  I started to bring her veggies from the garden, found another friend who had an extra blender, and she began the ritual of making herself a smoothie everyday.  She started buying herself nuts and seeds and spinach and kale!  We started to look for alternatives for her for the Ensure she was allocated money for each month.  Don’t even get me started on that one… The top 5 ingredients of Ensure: water, corn maltodextrin, sugar, milk protein concentrate, canola oil.  Come on, really?  This is supposed to make you healthier?  This is what our health care system deems as a paid monthly requirement to help clients gain weight?

Rhonda also started to drink water.  She now drinks two litres a day whereas before she would only drink a cup a day, just to get her pills down.  Imagine!  That poor body, surviving on a cup of water a day!

About 3 weeks after Rhonda told me she was going to start the process of quitting smoking, she just quit cold turkey.  No planning, no schedules or cutting back slowly, just DONE.  No longer a smoker.  Never went back.  Her house smells amazing, and now instead of me standing at the door because I can’t handle the smell of smoke in her home, we can visit and laugh together on the couch.  What an amazing woman.  Every Tuesday when I see her, I think of the adversity she has faced and I hear new stories about her past.  How she had to flee from her husband with her 3 year old daughter in the middle of the night and how a police dog found her the morning after she tried to take her own life.

I am proud to be Rhonda’s friend and I am so lucky to be able to learn from her.  Rhonda is the epitome of who I want to be.  Kind, generous, always looking out for the little guy, the older person or the underdog.  She is raw and honest and she is so grateful for her home and her life.  Truly grateful, not just saying it.  Every time I see her, she talks about how she is blessed for what she has.  How it’s not a tiny apartment to her, it’s a home.  She told me she once lived on the lake down on Manhattan Drive and had a landscaper and cleaning lady.  She left that life to escape her husband. 

In her journey these past 20 years, she has had moments of forgetting her strength, her fierceness, who she was meant to be.  She sometimes questions herself and suffers from anxiety in public.  She can be immobilized by fear to drive to the store or to walk to the park on the corner.  She had not been out for the evening for 20 years she said, until a few weeks ago when we went out to a paint night together.  I see who she really is, a closet social butterfly just waiting to spread her wings.   I see her flourishing now.  She walks to the park and sits on the bench.   She nourishes her body and she is constantly thinking of how she can help others.   She LOVES the plant based meals she is eating and she has gained 13 pounds since her last doctors appointment.  The compassion in her diet is in line with the way she lives her life.  She, like the rest of us as we age, is finding herself again.   Her eyes light up when we go through her packages of food each week, going over the different meal options she will be tasting.  And of course the plant based treats that often accompany her main courses. 🙂 This food is igniting a fire in her.  She is engaged, curious about what foods will make her healthier.  She says for the first time in a long time, she actually wants to eat.

As I was writing this blog post I messaged Rhonda to make sure she was okay with me writing this.  Here is some of what she wrote to me.

” I did attempt (when I was very sick) suicide, I went to a bird santuary one evening, took my pills and became unconscious before finishing my next handful and the police dog found me the next morning.  I was skinny, I had lost all hope. It was like I had a very evil and dark force whose sole purpose was to kill my soul.    I was tired of fighting.  Everything I wanted appeared impossible.  It was terribly hard on my family.  The doctors said that it was a miracle I lived as I had taken enough medicine to kill a small cow.   I am comfortable speaking about my life.  I have jumped over a few hurdles.  However here I sit today and for the first time in years I feel like I am starting to live, not just exist.  You have shown me and supported me……I feel alive!  It’s you Shauna that has made my life a little brighter…. sure put in a picture of us… like I said, I have no aversion to being rich and famous LOL!”

I am so blessed to call you my friend Rhonda.  Thank you for our weekly visits. You have no idea how your friendship feeds my soul too.

I am not writing this in search of credit in any way.  We all touch people in this life by our smile, our words, our kindness.  Sometimes we aren’t even aware of it.  In return, we are all touched by the things others do.  This is humanity.  I have been just so moved by the differences that friendship and a plant-based diet can make in our world.  This is what inspires me.