Today was an exceptionally good day.
It started out with a patient leaving us a large box of chocolate truffles. Absolutely heavenly, or devilish, I can't quite decide, either way, they were so good it was practically scandalous. Creamy richness melting on my tongue.
Then my lovely little Thai patient gave me a big sloppy kiss on the neck when she was hugging me on the way out the door (after she had a picture taken with baby and me). She may have been going for my cheek, but she just wasn't tall enough, her chin was about up to my elbow.
Later in the day my other favourite patient, a young girl here doing a masters from Ecuador, wrote me a sweet note on a postcard from Quito. Her story had inspired me and the nurses had found me more than once just sitting chatting with her and her mom in their room. I'm keeping the note to read on the bad days:
Agosto 1, 2007
Dra Shohona,
Espero que siempre conserves tu sonrisa y buen caracter, y que alegres a tus pacientes. Exitos y bendiciones. Gracias por todo.
Rita, Karla, y Nicole
That was two more kisses which put my tally up to three, although I'm not sure if Ecuadorian 'besitos' really count. Its more like shaking hands, everyone kisses everyone in Ecuador! Oh well, I'll count them anyway.
I realize that I'm deeply blessed and privileged to share just a little of the beauty of life with each of these people, each with their own stories of love and pain.
Today there was also a memorial held for the woman who died last week. Unfortunately I couldn't make it, but the still fresh memories of death and sorrow made a striking juxtaposition on the joy and gratefulness I was filled with today. Life is such a contradiction, so hard yet happy, so miserable yet lovely. But today, today was a good day.
No comments:
Post a Comment