I started wearing a safety pin on my lapel last week.

I read about the trend, which started in England after the nation voted to leave the European Union.  The safety pin shows people whom you meet that they can consider themselves safe with you.  I found the symbol a bit ironic, as the mother of a child born in 1991 who covered his clothing in safety pins for the best part of 7th and 8th grade.  But nonetheless, I wear it as a symbol of unity.

When I took my coat off in court yesterday, my client saw the safety pin on my lapel and thanked me.  By the end of the day, he, his husband, and his mother-in-law all wore one, taken from a little pouch in my carry bag which I bought for the very act of sharing.

But my friend Jeanne Serra went one better.  She found the perfect way to broadcast her feelings.  As I sit here, thankful for Facebook through which she and I reconnected, my worries fall away.  I suppress complaint.  In a world where Jeanne’s message seems painfully necessary, I cannot grumble about anything, not even the sharp tingling in my back which signals an impending shingles outbreak.

It’s the sixteenth day of the thirty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  I’m grateful to be one of Jeanne’s people.  Life continues.