An opportunity to serve an extraordinary purpose every
day
About
four months ago I found myself an unlikely participant in an unlikely
situation, after having endured the unlikeliest of journeys. At the end of
October myself and three others from Solaris (Andy Milligan, Luke Oyler, and
Robbie Surratt) boarded a plane in Dallas and made our way towards Nepal. We
were traveling halfway around the world in order to help a non-profit
organization called Mountain Child bring medical care to the people of the
Himalayas. It was an extraordinary opportunity to serve an extraordinary
purpose.
We spent about a week
trekking through the mountains with a diverse team and holding medical camps at
various places along the way. The trek alone could inspire hundreds of blog
posts that still would not cover all that we experienced. Suffice it to say
that by the time the trek ended the four of us were keenly aware we had left
the mountains as changed men. It had been decided long before our boots hit the
trail that we would spend our last Nepali night unwinding in a hotel in Thamel,
a popular tourist district in Kathmandu. The team at Mountain Child had already
planned to take our large group to that area for a day of shopping, so it
worked out well for the four of us to say our good bys and
split off.
When the full group
arrived our Mountain Child guide (Scott) agreed to take us around to try and
help find us a decent hotel. The first stop appeared to be a nice place, but we
were met with the unfortunate news that they were fully booked. It was right at
the beginning of the trekking season and there was potential for many of the
hotels in Thamel to give us the same report. The manager at this first hotel
offered to call around for us in an effort to save us the trouble of running
all over the city. Though the manager was able to find a potential replacement,
Andy and our guide came across another that seemed better.
So we rolled our
luggage through the ridiculously crowded streets and into the courtyard of our
temporary home. That night we were treated to a veritable feast of grilled
meats courtesy of the hotel’s owner. It was a welcomed respite from a week’s
worth of mountain meals dominated by vegetables and rice. During this feast we
were joined in the courtyard by many of the other guests staying at the hotel,
a number of which were from the United States.
As we stuffed ourselves
we struck up a conversation with an American man sitting nearby. We went
through a few of the typical pleasantries … How did you find yourself in Nepal?
Is this your first time in the country? How has your stay been so far? … before
finally landing on our lives back home. Over the years I’ve become accustomed
to having to explain the term hospice to those who ask about my profession. On
this trip the explanations were far more plentiful since all four of us
received similar questions and had to give similar answers. But something
different happened when this gentleman heard our response.
A wave of recognition
hit his face as soon as the word hospice entered his ears. He began to tell us
a story of how he was the primary caregiver for his grandmother when she was on
hospice. He talked about the peace and dignity that hospice afforded her during
her end of life process. His voice was on the verge of cracking as he described
the compassion shown by the hospice professionals that worked with his family
and how much it helped them during the toughest of times. He described it as
one of the most incredible experiences of his life. Though the story appeared
to be decades old the positive emotions associated with it were still very
fresh. As he finished he raised his glass to the four of us and thanked us for
what we do.
I was completely taken
aback by this entire exchange. We were still processing what we had experienced
in the Himalayas just a couple days before; an experience which completely
changed our lives but garnered merely an obligatory “oh, cool” from this
gentleman not ten minutes earlier. Yet when talk turned to the things we do
every single day, the things we get paid to do every single day, he was
floored.
As this brief exchange
came to a close I couldn’t help but turn my thoughts toward the greater meaning
of what had just happened. When we initially left the mountains I wondered how
I could go back to life as usual without feeling like I was missing something
extraordinary. My concerns were rendered moot all because we just happened to
strike up a conversation with this one hotel guest.
Over the last few months
I’ve spent a number of hours thinking about that evening. I’ve thought about
the events that lead up to that moment, how a slight variation here or there
would have changed everything. I’ve thought about the hotels that didn’t have
room for us that day and wondered what our evening would have been like if they
did. I’ve thought about how unlikely it is that this particular gentleman
happened to be at the same hotel as us on the same evening as us, sitting in
the same part of the courtyard as us. I’ve thought of the look of intense
gratitude on his face as he shared his story with us. I’ve thought about how
fortunate we were for our paths to cross and to share in that moment.
We have a number of
terms in our vernacular to describe events such as this: coincidence, fate,
synchronicity, destiny, God’s plan, luck, serendipity, and random occurrence
are but a few. I can’t say exactly which I would use as a descriptor, but I do
know this: that evening was, and will forever be, a vivid reminder that by
working in the field of hospice I have an extraordinary opportunity to serve an
extraordinary purpose every single day.
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