I have been awake all night and I am very introspective, so
please forgive me if my mood seems melancholy.
Sometimes the greatest insights and most valuable wisdom live in the
shadows under an umbrella of sleep deprived “enlightenment”.
Have you ever been so overwhelmed by the “stuff”
happening in your life that you slipped into “survival mode”? All the elementary functions that you daily
take for granted now depend on you continuously having to remind yourself to
just put one foot in front of the next; to take one baby step at a time, to
just breathe? Today that is the
geography of the path my journey has taken me to. I don’t like being here because the tiniest pebbles become
boulders, but every time I walk this path I emerge more complete. And when I’m out of the forest and delivered
into the sunlight, I look back and realize how much that tangle gave me, how
much the better I am for having navigated it.
Here, in the tangle of brambles in which I find myself, I
have once again discovered extraordinary people from whom I take
inspiration. I want to share them with
you in the hope that like me, you will be all the better for the life-wisdom
they have to share.
There is a middle-aged man who works in the Transport
department here at the hospital. In my
brief stay, he has already carted me around the campus 3 times, each time
brightening my day with his extra sunny disposition, his shout-outs to
individual nurses by whom he is loved in each department, and his endless
ability to smile and laugh. He is a
special needs individual who came to work at the hospital when he was 15 years
old and the hospital sat in a farm field.
For at least 30 years, 6 days a week, this is what he has done,
undoubtedly selflessly and enthusiastically.
Where does that come from?
It’s easy to chalk it up to “simplicity” or “ naivete”, but
this man is anything but that. He has
only to transport someone once and he knows and remembers who they are and what
they talked about. He doesn’t shuffle
along while pushing beds and chairs at least twice the weight and size of his
small frame. No, his visibly crippled
legs carry him with a grace and briskness of pace that demonstrate his desire
to transport as many patients as he can in a single day and to brighten their
day in the process.
I asked him, “how do you deal with all that you see here
every day and always smile and shine your light?” He said, “Oh, I love what I do! I love the doctors and the patients, even
the grumpy ones. I know that if I can
make them smile or, better yet, giggle, I’ve really done
something great. And even if I can’t I come away feeling better for having
tried.” I told him that he is a rare
gem and to never lose the incredible attitude that has carried him smiling
through what I know has been a lifetime of what most of us would consider
“hardship” and “disability”. There is
nothing “disabled” about this man. He
is a living testament to the adage; “don’t ever judge a book by its cover, “
for the eyes, they doth deceive.
There is a 68-year-old Nurse/Technician who’s loving warmth,
sense of humor, and razor sharp wit are rarely witnessed in a person who has
worked at the same hospital full-time for 37 years. To see and hear her, one would never know she faced a single day
of struggle. Yet having grown up in one
of the most dangerous areas of Chicago, attended “the worse” schools in
the nation and buried her soul mate early in life, leaving her a single parent
to several children, I know that she is a friend to “struggle”, “hardship”, and
“pain”. Where does she come from?
We reminisced about growing up in Chicago (proper), about
Riverview Amusement Park and Roller Rink, about the neighborhood parks, the people, the pizza and the
hotdogs. I came from the sunny side of
the tracks and rode in my parents’ car.
She came from the shadey side of the tracks and felt privileged
whenever she could ride the bus.
People on my side went to “private” (often parochial) schools. She and her friends dodged bullets and gang
violence on their way to and from what was nationally rated as one of the top 5
“worse school districts”. My mother was
a “stay-at-home-mom”. Her mother took
the bus to the wealthy neighborhood of Glencoe every day, 7 days a week, and
was “nanny” and housekeeper for a wealthy family there. I watched my mother pay for college and
become a CPA. She watched her mother
earn the love and affection of the family she worked for for so long that they
paid to send her to nursing school, and that was what it meant to
be “privileged”.
She shared a priceless "Norman Rockwell moment that I must share with you,
because it speaks to the innocence and the perspective that has sustained her,
her whole life, preserving the joyful, vibrant child in her, unsinged by
circumstance to this day. Her best friend
was the daughter of the wealthy family her mother worked for. They played together, laughed together, and
dreamed together, at one time dreaming of becoming “ladies of the night”
together because they both liked the shoes, the makeup, and the fashion. One day they were sitting on the curb
outside the Glencoe mansion eating candy together, when her friend said to her,
“you know, you look so chocolate; you’re like a little chocolate ice cream
cone.” She replied, “and you, you are
so white, you look like a little vanilla ice cream cone.” The idea came to light in both children’s
heads at the exact time, and they licked each other on the face. “Oooh, you don’t taste like chocolate at
all,” her friend told her, through scrunched up face. “And you don’t taste like any vanilla ice cream I ever wanna
eat,” she said back. Then they just
laughed and returned to looking at their world through glasses that did not see
color, never re-visiting the societal subject that, for the most part, kept them both on their own
side of the fence until the lines of racial discrimination began leaving room
for small holes. Her friend is a
lawyer. She is a nurse. And "Chocolate" and "Nilla", well, even though they live in distant cities, they're close to this day.
 We choose the lens through which we see our world. Some of us wear glasses so dark and dim that very little light can shine through. Others of us put on “rose colored glasses” at birth and never take them off, even as life tries to rip them from the face. Those are the people you want to be around. They are enlightening, uplifting, and a breath of fresh air every time you are privileged enough to be in their presence. She is one of those people and any patient not too blind to see, has to be positively affected every time she shines her light in their room. I know I have been, and I truly thank her for it. |
From him I learned the value of positive attitude. From her I learned the need to choose and
maintain the perspective that serves you best.
From this whole experience, I've learned that beauty and enlightenment
are everywhere, even in the tangles, if we just open our hearts to it. I've been reminded, once again, that people are
put on our path, at the exact “right time”, in exactly the “right place” where
we can grow from “experiencing” one another.
All that we must do is be alert to them and embrace the opportunities as
they present themselves. I've learned
that at the deepest levels, the human “soul” is self-sustaining or
self-destructive, but the choice is ours to make.
 |
| CATSPECTIVE 101 "DON'T SHUTTER YOUR HEART" |
It’s OK sometimes to put on the dark glasses, but never choose
to wear them long, for they will eventually shutter your heart. Regardless of circumstances, wake up every
day reaching for the rose colored ones.
They will lift the shades of your mind and color you receptive, so
that the special “God” moments in your life aren't missed, and the
extraordinary people you are destined to meet can brighten your path and
enlighten you as they were meant to.
but....necessary
