A few weeks ago I sustained a very minor injury to my ankle while walking to an evening class on campus. Since that time I have learned some valuable lessons:
- Walking on crutches looks far easier than it really is. I only had to endure using these devices for a few days but it was long enough to realize I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy!
- Mobility is a gift that should never be taken for granted. Getting from A to Z when you’re physically challenged can be as exhausting mentally as it is tiring on your body.
- Finally, learning to ask for and receive assistance from others requires grace and humility, especially for those of us more accustomed to being on the helping end.
For me, the last lesson has been the most important. People in the helping professions are often the last ones to seek out assistance for themselves. And yet a willingness to be vulnerable and in need can be a virtue in itself for it allows others the opportunity to become providers of support and bearers of grace to us. When we recognize that all of us can be helpers some of the time even as all of us can be needy at other times, we realize that life is really a dance of mutuality and an exercise in shared empathy.
So here is a huge thank you to all who have ever assisted someone with similar challenges to me. Thanks for offering transportation when needed, for opening doors, for carrying coffee and book bags, for simply being compassionate and sympathetic as you’ve inquired about another’s recovery and recuperation. May those who deal with all manner of challenges accept assistance with heartfelt gratitude and then pay it forward in good deeds of kindness when similar support is asked of them down the road.
As Barbara Streisand used to sing “People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world!” And as Pope John Paul II would add: Nobody is so poor that he has nothing to give, and nobody is so rich that she has nothing to receive.
Nobody is so poor that he has nothing to give, and
nobody is so rich that she has nothing to receive.
Peace, Anne