What's on Your Life Card?

There's a book called An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination where the author, Elizabeth McCracken, suggests that everyone should have a life card. This is similar to a business card, but instead of listing what you do for a living, it lists things that have happened in your life that you would like people to know before dealing with you, but don't want to have to explain.

McCracken's first child, her son, was born still and she writes about her experiences upon finding out and afterwards. She talks about having to deal with insensitive comments and uncomfortable conversations with others who didn't know of what happened and how she wished she had her own life card that said her first child had died.

Wouldn't this be great? You could put down those things that you most need others to understand before having a relationship with you. Your life card could say I have a child with a disability, my brother committed suicide, I'm incredible shy, my mother has cancer or my father is an alcoholic. With this information, others could be more careful with their words so they didn't cause unintentional harm. 

But we don't have life cards. Instead we carry these hurts inside our hearts and must endure the tiny assaults that come from others who don't know or understand. Perhaps this makes us stronger or at the very least we learn to guard our hearts. 

What it does teach us is that we need to keep the idea of life cards in mind when dealing with others. Think of what would go on your life card and with this in mind remember that others have their own tragedies, heartaches and insecurities on their cards and maybe you will deal differently with them.