"The phlebotomist was a gruff, edgy, fiftysomething woman, whom I consciously chose to warmly engage in conversation. She lived more than an hour away in the poorest county in our state. She'd moved back a year earlier, having left her marriage and gone to her daughter and granddaughter in another state. Then a natural disaster destroyed everything she owned. Then her dog died. Then her granddaughter was taken by her father."
"This morning, I thought about my own worst time in life, 40 years ago, when I was 23 and had dropped out of law school, and my beloved dad died, my beloved cat died, and my boyfriend broke up with me, all in the space of a couple of months. It was a dark, dark time. I had nightmares every night, often awaking screaming. Plenty of good things arose in the aftermath."
"I brought in a stray tortoiseshell cat from the street six days after my dad's death, and she gave birth to six kittens on my bed that very day. The following month, I met the man who would become my husband. He was sitting on the stoop of the building we shared with his tortoiseshell cat, and I invited him in to meet the kittens."
Choosing kindness created a meaningful encounter with a gruff phlebotomist who had lost home, pet, and family contact. A hug and sharing photos of her granddaughter followed the blood draw. A past period of profound grief at age 23 included the deaths of a father and a cat and a breakup, producing nightly nightmares. A stray tortoiseshell cat produced six kittens on the bed, leading to meeting a future husband who shared a tortoiseshell cat. A subsequent job as teacher and naturalist at a wildlife rehab launched a career and a commitment to be present for others in grief.
Read at Psychology Today
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