So you say that today you are off to a distant hotel, to be close to the hospital for your morning appointment? Open heart surgery. Yes this can certainly happen. All kinds of hospital visits can happen.
You can be the mother who learns over the telephone that one of your children needs surgery, and it turns out there is cancer and lots of distressing appointments and treatments and then you thank your lucky stars the cat scan comes back perfectly clean after 14 very long months that change all of your families' lives.
Or you can be the person who is lucky enough to be sponsored by one of the richest men in China and you do get to go to the hospital and have your cataract surgery after all. Or you can be the person who travels to doctor after doctor and searches for years for relief only to learn from a naturopathic doctor that your ailment is really treatable with natural remedies that begin to work almost immediately.
And you can get angry and grieve daily and finally feel grateful for your life and for others' lives. No matter how long this life is. Just to hold life in the hollow of your hand for a moment, …that can be enough somedays. Just to see how blessed this experience can be, called life, …that can be enough somedays.
This gratefulness brings you up from your despair. You push it backwards like the night, let it fall behind you and look with bleary tear drenched eyes and sunken cheeks towards the rising sun. To see the light. You walk tentatively at first, then finally start to feel the cadence of your strides. You walk. You sit. You breathe. You give thanks for what you've experienced.
Experience tells me that illness can be our greatest teacher because there is an opportunity for so much learning. And learning is a life long pursuit.
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