Yesterday
was a great day for a walk…as Winnie the Pooh would have put it, a perfect day
to be quiet by a little stream and listen.
“Everybody
should be quiet
by a little
stream and listen.”
~Winnie the Pooh~
So,
that’s what I did. My route took me back and forth across a lovely brook four
times. The sky was clear blue, the sun was warm, and the air was still. The
silence and solitude gave me time to think. It was a perfect day for me…but not
for everyone.
In
contrast to the comfort, peace, and gratitude I felt for my own good fortune…my
thoughts were drawn to the news. Not just to the underlying current of poverty,
violence, and sorrow that stalks mankind in general…but specifically to the young
boy who suffocated in his car last week despite his pleas for help after
calling 911…after texting his mother to say that, if he died there, he wanted
her to know he loved her. My thoughts turned the eight-year old girl found dead
after a brutal rape. And to their families’ shattered hearts.
I
couldn’t help but think about the victims of the week’s senseless shootings. About
the plight of animals who were neglected and abused. About the latest damage to
the only environment we know. And, as a physician, about the people I know who
are sick or dying.
“I am
constantly amazed
by man’s inhumanity
to man.”
~Primo Levi~
Arrrgh!
It is all so insanely painful to contemplate. What are we to do?
A
couple of hours after my walk, I went to my yoga/meditation class, and you know
what? I felt better after it…stronger and calmer. It reminded me that as health
care providers, we come to accept the fact that we can help some of our
patients, but not all of them. We can save lives some of the time, but not all the
time. We have to take the bad news with the good. We have no choice.
Nevertheless,
because we have the skill and sensitivity to offer words and to perform acts of
comfort, encouragement, and solace, we have the power to bring balance to the
world. Without the good we do, without the gratitude we feel, without the
kindness we offer, how would we survive?
Caring,
giving, embracing hope…and perhaps even prayer…are necessary survival skills in
a world that might otherwise go down in defeat. The good that we do, where we
are, with what we have strengthens us for the journey.
“Do what you
can,
with what you
have,
where you are.”
~Theodore Roosevelt~
jan
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