Happy Holidays!
It has been a while since a Because I Asked has been posted.
As the holidays approach I thought this would be very appropriate-
Enjoy!
One day early last summer, I was feeling sorry for myself for relatively minor reasons. We were moving for the sixth time in ten years and my arthritic hands hurt from packing and from digging up treasured plants to take with us. My husband, Wes, was inside the hospital getting an X-RAY for an upcoming surgical process. This was NOT the problem because, in our 28 years together, he has had a series of orthopedic surgical processes leading to this one and was anticipating good results. Let me clarify slightly that a series of surgical processes has not been a pleasant thing, but he has seen improvement and has developed a sense of humor to deal with the whole thing. Because of miscommunication, though, he had left me in the car without keys, so I couldn’t even listen to music or turn on the air conditioning. I was reading, believe it or not, a book club selection about understanding your emotions, which I did not understand.
I realize now that my complaints were relatively minor, but as I waited in the hospital parking lot for Wes to return from his x-rays, I was hot and hungry and bored, so I got out of the car and found a bench near the hospital entrance to sit in a slightly more comfortable location. As I waited, I watched the cars that came and went while absentmindedly wondering what had brought everyone there.
Before long, I observed something which I hope I will remember for a while. Two women, both much younger than I, came out of the door to the Radiology Department. One was sitting in a wheelchair, and the other was pushing it. They seemed to be heading for the parking lot when suddenly , the driver of the wheelchair said, “Oh no! We came in here on the other side of the building!” “I am so sorry,” she said to her passenger “I’ll be back soon… are you OK?” She then started running, but almost immediately turned around, a big smile on her face for the other girl, and called out clearly “EVERY DAY’S AN ADVENTURE, RIGHT?” and the passenger, also smiling, gave her two thumbs up.
I felt that had just seen something special, an interaction between two people who were clearly close and almost certainly navigating a difficult situation but were maintaining a positive attitude and approaching whatever came their way as an adventure rather than an insurmountable challenge. After they left, I patiently waited for Wes and, when he eventually came out, we got back in the car and left on our own adventure, which that day included stopping on the way home for ice cream.
By Sue Biddle
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