Compassionate Ear

 

It is bright as hell outside as I draw the curtains apart in my room; it was nearly 9:30 before I swallowed my first pill. I got up this morning at around 5:30, but I didn’t move from the bed till just a few minutes ago. My coffee has been sitting on my desk since 7 o’clock, but drinking it cold is nothing new to me.

After playing phone tag with two different doctors in the same medical building, I’m sitting here watching the apartment maintenance man manhandle a dryer up the stairs. So it’s just another day in my neighborhood.

Now it’s after 10 o’clock and I’ve barely got a paragraph written. Usually, by now, I’ve already posted something. But as I am learning already, this doesn’t look like an ordinary day. With more lab work needing to be done this afternoon, my mind is already on the clock. So I’m having a bit of a time focusing on a subject for this story.

Still, earlier this morning I took the time to lay in bed and catch up on some of my social media replies. One in particular has stuck with me—from a friend in Eastern Europe, who, with her small family, took a trip to the mountains. Just your normal holiday shots, but knowing her background story, it brought me such joy to see the smiles on their faces.

And that, if nothing else, is the reason I do what I do. I make connections; I keep up with people where, under normal circumstances, you would share only a “Like”. And while I have some people I follow where I do just that, there are a select few where their stories and images just connect with me.

So those are the ones I work to keep a bond with, to show that life is more than just a game of “see what I have done”. For whether you know it or not, you might be that stranger's lifeline. Not a nuisance or a stalker, but a compassionate ear whenever they need one.

#CompassionateListening #HumanConnection #Empathy #Gratitude #BeKind