Life Lessons

Nothing seems to put life in perspective for me like working a day in the field office.

I have to admit, I have been having a gigantic pity party for myself and now I am having a case of the guilties.

Today, I had a man walk into our office. He is 72, his wife is 70, they have two adopted sons still living at home, one is 15, the other 18.

He starts out by telling me he sure hopes he has everything he is supposed to, that he is a bit lost because he had never had to do anything like this and wouldn't have known how to anyway because his wife always took care of that kind of stuff. She went to the hospital for chemo last Monday and they kept her.

When I asked if he was a Veteran, he said yes, Korean war; when I asked if his wife was, he said "No, but she might as well have been, all those nights she worried about me".

When I asked his highest level of education, 4 years of college, when I asked about his wife's he said, "She graduated from high school, don't think she snuck anything else in there and we've been together since she was 14".

When I asked what kind of cancer she had, he said it was a bone cancer, it is attacking her entire body, the worst part so far as been a big spot on her jaw. They had to take out part of her jaw bone, and honestly, part of her face. He said the plastic surgeons had told her they could reconstruct down the road. The gentleman said "I just told her she can do what she wants, I just want to get to keep her."

He then proceeded to tell me about the special bed they had brought to the house for her. It some kind of "wound" bed and has continuous movement in it. He said he doesn't see how she can get much rest in it, but it hurts her to stay still.

God has a way of putting us in our place pretty fast. I have come to the conclusion that having to know where the nearest bathroom is, having to stick my finger, and having to make sensible decisions about what I eat isn't really a big deal and the lesson that God taught me today is that it never should have been in the first place.