You pile up enough tomorrows and you’ll be left with nothing but a bunch of empty yesterdays. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to make today worth remembering. (Meredith Willson)
As I run toward the building my coat and the front of my pants soak with a waterfall-downpour.
“I’d wait if I were you,” a man calls from the curb.
However, my appointment is in five minutes. Enough time to sign in, not delay until Mother Nature’s mood settles.
“I swam in,” I tell staff at the Little Clinic. They took care of the preliminaries for me. I’ve been a regular customer for the past few days. One more to go.
“You are a beautiful person,” the nurse practitioner says as I slide down from my seat on the examination table, after receiving one more subcutaneous belly injection.
“So are you,” I answer.
This woman is a sunshine soul. A gift. She shares a positive attitude, an awareness that every individual has something to give. The tone for my day has been set.
I know. A needle in the abdomen? Not as uncomfortable as most folk would expect it to be—when the injector knows what she is doing. Moreover, I’ve been surrounded by so many examples of larger perspective, I can’t complain.
People I know face cancers with little hope of recovery. Friends deal with dementia, children into drugs, rejection from family. Even in these places I find amazing faith and hope in their stories. Prayer is good; presence and support are better.
Perhaps the moment can transcend the season.
The gentleman who suggested that I wait is no longer outside the building. I’m sure he meant to help. However, sometimes I need to head directly into a storm. With a friend or two and a good raincoat.
Embrace the glorious mess that you are. (
It’s never too late – in fiction or in life – to revise. (
terrypetersen 