Sacred Stories
She had been feeling lonely and homesick for their previous home of 27 years, missing friends in particular. She began reflecting on the power of connection, even small conversations with those one doesn’t know well, in the course of daily life. She recalled the early days of Covid quarantine, wherein her daily walks brought nourishing and sustaining brief encounters with people she didn’t really know, or only knew slightly—and remembered how uplifting those small exchanges were. So, she resolved to start conversations with at least a few strangers she would encounter on that day’s walk—and she did!
Out on her walk, she met a man wearing a T-shirt urging others to donate platelets — and her husband had just been scheduled to receive a transfusion of platelets, at least the 3rd or 4th such transfusion he has needed as a result of his blood cancer.
So, she was able to thank the man personally, and give him a tangible piece of evidence of how much his lifesaving blood donations meant to another person in his community. She then learned that he had donated platelets over 350 times!
Further, this man shared that he had had a heart attack and triple bypass just 3 weeks earlier, and was now on aspirin. So, he was in the process of determining how many days he would have to go without his aspirin in order to be able to donate again!
As they parted after this personal and meaningful, though brief, conversation, the man said to her: “So many people have it so much worse than we do.” She was so touched and inspired by his ability to express this perspective, when he had narrowly escaped death just 3 weeks earlier!