From the Playground

Our most vulnerable are our children, elderly, women and sick. These four groups deserve the best practice and high quality care:  the word care. What does that mean? So many go into a 9-5 job and that is all it is for them: a job. A going through the motions like a machine kind of job. The worst is that some are good at their job and others are not. However, what sets a handful apart is how they care and treat another human being. It is caring for the job, taking pride in what you do and being happy with yourself when you look at the product and or your creation. It is also going the extra mile.

Long ago someone told me that there are three types of people and you store them according to how they perform. Top drawer is for the ones who go that extra mile and who you have to have to go on with your work and who you can lean on. Second drawer is for people who perform well and does everything by the book. The bottom drawer is for the ones who you would live without because they do the bare minimum and sometimes even cut corners. Why would you even keep them around you?

Why is this? Why is there only a few? Care is synonymous with responsibility, protection and control. So much is out of our control; however, to care about and for someone is profound work.

The worst thing you can do is turn your back on someone who is vulnerable. As I read the biography The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a quote surfaces again and again throughout my life: “The worst thing you can do to a sick person is close the door and forget about him” (Skloot 276). It is the worst thing. No one will take care of a loved one like you will; that is the God’s honest truth. No one. And, when you see a person who does, appreciate them and thank the stars and your God for a blessing such as that. 

Who makes sure they eat and drink? Who ensures they are ok? That they don’t roll from the bed? Ensures they are loved and have attention? Ensures that crumbs are wiped away and holds their hand when in pain?

I want to tell you a folklore story passed down. Once there lived an Inuit grandfather who was so old and shaky that when he tried to feed himself or drink, his hands would shake and food would fall to the floor, water would spill and create a mess.

Many did not have patience and since he was disabled in a wheel chair, no longer working and providing “bread and butter” aka his fair share, it was almost time for him to move on. The following week the elder man’s son bundled him up in a jacket and handed him a blanket. The son told his son to please wheel him away deep into the forest. The boy pushed his grandfather over the bumpy ground. Feeling the weight and the burden, the boy pushed on and parked his grandfather’s chair deep into the woods out of sight.

As the boy turned to leave, his grandfather called his name. He said “yes?” The grandfather handed him the blanket back and said, “Make sure you give this blanket to your father when it is his turn.”

We cannot close the door on someone or anyone we are meant to care for whether it be a relative, a child…anyone.

There will be a point where you will be in those shoes.  At some point we were all children and at another point we will be old, weak and vulnerable like a child again. We need to take care of each other.

In the book My Stroke of Insight, Jill Bolt Taylor talks about how she recovered a stroke and could literally feel people’s energies. She felt and loved a select few of people in a hospital that cared for her. Most of all, she remembered as she recovered and regained parts of her brain. She felt the difference between nurses who poked and prodded and others who got low to her bedside and whispered, talked and asked “How are you feeling?” Accompanied by touch.

In this story it is similar to how we work and care for each other. Some do and some don’t. That’s the reality. The good ones are worth holding onto.