To our dear readers~
I have a confession to make. For the past month, I have been regretfully in a state of seemingly perpetual writer's block. It is extremely frustrating to not be able to produce something for our blog readers each month, let alone each week. Despite somewhat of a setback, I wanted to write this post for our dedicated readers and supporters who have given us inspiration from Day 1. We are forever grateful. Thank you.
________________________________________________________________________________
In the spirit of Thanksgiving and giving thanks, I could write about how I am thankful and blessed for many things in my life: my family and friends who love and support me, my continued faith in God and His presence in my life, my education at one of the greatest universities in the world, etc. The list can literally go on for pages and pages if I was determined to write every little thing down. But, today I want to spend some time looking at aspects of our daily lives that we often take for granted. On that note, I wanted to share a personal story about an unexpected encounter.
As some of you know, I volunteer at Alta Bates Medical Center at the Diabetes Center. My normal duties are of the mundane, clerical type as expected of my volunteer status: filing, faxing, writing and addressing letters, appointment phone calls, database, etc. My duties don't vary much from week to week, but this past week I was able to visit a patient at the main hospital. The main reason for the visit was to give nutrition counseling for a diabetic patient whose caregiver had given him too much insulin that had landed him in the hospital. Thankfully, he was fine, but my supervisor decided to check up on him in any case and make sure the caregiver knew what to do when he was discharged to go home.
My supervisor and I entered into the main hospital and up the elevator to the sixth floor. As we circled around the corner and identified his name placard on the door, we quietly entered the room. The patient was an elderly British gentleman with wisps of grey hair barely covering his head and multiple wires and tubes running up his thin, age spotted arm. He was lying on the bed facing the television with the subtitles running across the screen for a home improvement episode. His stomach was distended and represented a mound underneath the blanket. My supervisor went ahead and started asking questions and making small talk with him as I stood awkwardly by the door. I didn't know how long this session would take and I was anxious to catch the bus back to Berkeley because the days were getting shorter and I disliked the idea of waiting at a bus stop at night. Eventually, after my supervisor finished asking questions, we stood waiting for the caregiver to arrive. As we waited, my supervisor looked out the window and said,
"Wow, take a look at that sunset! Isn't it beautiful?"
I followed her gaze and discovered a breathtaking view of the bay with a sunset filled with an array of colors. I hadn't even noticed it when I came in. I was too caught up in my own mind to care about a sunset that happened every day. My supervisor asked the gentleman if he was able to see it, to which he replied, "No, I can't see it from here. It hurts when I turn my head."
It occurred to me that I could help him see it. I pulled out my phone and held it close to the window, snapped a picture, and had that beautiful sunset captured in that moment. Here is the picture I took:
I walked over to him and showed him the sunset I had captured. He looked at the picture and then up at me and replied,
"That is quite beautiful. Thank you."
Although I knew the picture wasn't nearly as beautiful as actually seeing it, for him, it was good enough. For him, he was thankful for having been able to see the sunset even if he only saw a crappy photo captured on my phone.
Looking back at this experience, I realize that when my life gets too hectic, I naturally forget about all the simple, wonderful things around me. I forget to thank God for all the wonders and blessings He has given to us such as the warmth of sunshine on our face, the smell of the air after the rain, the roof over our heads, the food on our table, the feeling we get when we hug our loved ones, our health and even a beautiful sunset at the end of the day. Thanksgiving gets us thinking about what we're thankful for and so I invite you to take a moment to be thankful for the small things as well as to give thanks for the blessings and challenges/hardships that have helped you become stronger and hopefully more grateful each day.
On behalf of T and myself, we hope all of our readers had a wonderful Thanksgiving! T and I are so very thankful to our readers who continue to stick with us even through our long hiatus and my numerous apologetic posts. We hope to get new gfree awesomeness out to you soon and we always welcome blog suggestions. Remember, that we write for YOU, so let us know what you're curious about or whatever you think is interesting that we might want to explore in our next posts.
Until next time,
Kris
Posts
