Some Perspective...

Met a lady (customer at the Honda Dealership where I work)...I was recommending some services she should consider when she told me she has a regular mechanic who takes care of those items. Then she explained why...

Her Husband has ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.) She told me her husband is wheelchair bound, losing his ability to speak and is going into hospice care.

No one BEATS ALS.

ALS always wins and yet she seemed rather chipper. I shared a short version of my story in response to understanding the cost of care, how far money doesn't go, why I understood what a life shaking health crisis feels like and why the extra services I was recommending were only recommendations. Of course she could decline them. She was surprised to know I was the one who had cancer.

We discussed faith and agreed that it is okay to get angry as you often do with a diagnosis such as her husbands or in the case of any disease. She told me they were both teachers and her husband was perfectly healthy until he suddenly no longer was and yet she seems to be at peace with her situation and without saying so we both obviously understood it was going to get worse.

Faith seems to ease the burden but it's not always roses and rainbows. Faith is the bridge that makes life passable- however, life still can be and is often unnecessarily cruel.

Hearing about someone else's problems like this always makes my heart skip a beat because I know what that first pulse stopping reaction to such news feels like. I empathize immediately and it's not the same empathy people feign to make you think they understand, it's empathy because I feel it. I have been there.

We parted ways after I handed her her keys back after her car was done. We bolstered each other with encouraging words and a promise to keep each other's families in prayer and kind thoughts.

It puts life in acute perspective every time something like this comes up and you see how people deal with disease and what they no longer take for granted everyday.


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