Dawn welcomed
me today with the chirp of a sparrow and the unlocking of the shutters of the
shops opposite to my house, beautifully laced by chance, one into the other.
Taking the office shuttle had demanded my rising at 6.15 am, but since 2020,
the IT industry has been successfully working on a work from home model and I
had managed at least another hour and half of sleep and loved being a late riser. This had been the practice
so far but today was special as there was a hospital procedure appointment for
me. And so, I was up at 6.15 am today after a long time. Our driver also had to
take a share of this brunt of rising early.
As a family,
our minds were replete with a certain amount of anxiety, considering the
procedures that I had to go through and as to how finally the outcome would turn
out to be. This feeling that had begun in a small way yesterday had now increased
in intensity and now kept banging the doors of our minds constantly, not
allowing us to think of anything else.
While waiting
at the hospital, I got to interact with the family of another patient who was
also waiting in the same hall. The patient was a very young boy suffering from a
critical state of congenital heart disease. The family had already spent time,
effort and money into several years of treatment and had very little hope that
he would survive. The moment I heard their story, I felt mine was of miniscule
gravity when compared to what I heard. On one side, I felt lighter, but I
realized that probably this is the way Nature has constructed all our obstacles
in life. Each one has their own set of problems and obstacles and the more myopic
we are about them, the more we feel that they are the biggest problems and
obstacles we have in this world.
I believe
that many times, I can refuel myself with hope by witnessing the hopeless,
especially whose hopelessness is of a higher state than myself, and that's what
a hospital offers us with. Although on the surface, it seems to be a depressive
place, where we get to see patients with a variety of ailments, that
is indeed the place that gives us the realization when we get a little deeper, by
interacting with another human who is sick and his or her family, that as a
family and as individuals, we are really gifted.
