There is no one who can always be there for you – it is not to be taken personally and it does not mean that you can never “trust” or “count” on others, especially people who care. It only means that G-d is the only companion who can, in fact, be always and everywhere.
I, thankfully, learned this lesson from my father a long, long time ago. I was 11 years old on a family vacation that included a few days in Yellowstone National Park. On the second day my father pulled off to the side of the road near a bunch of cars – people were coming back to their cars – they told us that there was a herd of elk laying in the grass about 75 yards away. My dad and I walked through the field with a little Kodak instant camera. We walked to within about 25 yards of the herd.
All of a sudden, a large elk stood, looked at us and took a step in our direction. My father told me not to move a muscle. We stood in fear – my father was an overweight Chicago attorney – not an outdoorsman. About a minute went by and the large elk took one more step towards us and then the entire herd rose from the ground – we held our breath. The large elk turned and walked away from us, and the rest of the herd followed.
That night as I was falling asleep – still quite shaken from the experience, I hesitantly asked my dad what we would have done if the elk would have charged us --.my dad, the person I trusted most in life – my dad, the person I could always count on. He paused a moment and said the following:
“Well – I guess that we would both run as fast as we could in two different directions and hope that they ran after YOU! – Remember, you can’t count on anyone all the time - sometimes it’s every man for himself.”
I can remember feeling the way one does during the first massive drop on a roller coaster. As the years went on, however, I came to see the truth and wisdom of those words. Assuredly, No One can be there for you all the time - it's a big mistake to expect that you cannot trust or count on someone just because they are not there for you 100 percent – even if they fail you in a moment of great importance on occasion.
As long as someone is usually there for you – and failing to do so isn’t a pervasive pattern – then you would better grieve or curse the instance rather than conclude they don’t care or cannot be trusted.
When I finished graduate school I wrote a letter to my father: “I’m ready to face the Elk” it began – may we all be ready and stay ready.
