For Q's birthday celebration, we took him, April and Celeste, her three year old daughter, to dinner at Outback. We ordered our drinks and a Bloomin' Onion, and things were underway for a festive dining experience.
Our waiter seemed somewhat distracted, however, and had to be reminded every time someone needed a drink refill. He also neglected to clear away dishes we were finished with, and the table soon became cluttered. We complained among ourselves about the service not being up to speed. After we had finished dessert, we waited a long time for the bill to come. We finally had to signal him that we were ready for it. He was just standing around in the doorway at the back engaged in conversation with another waiter. The bill arrived and we noticed that he had not charged us for any of the drinks. We pointed it out to him and he told us in a soft voice that he hadn't really forgotten. We assumed he meant that he had left the charges off on purpose. A few minutes later he returned and very apologetically informed us that he had brought us the wrong bill, and that he was so sorry but he was having a very bad day. There were no charges for the drinks on the correct bill either. We assured him that we understood, and that everyone has a bad day from time to time, and not to worry about it.
At that point his eyes began to fill with tears, and he told us that he had just received some very bad news. He indicated that he wanted to tell us, a group of complete strangers, about his devastating news. We braced ourselves. He then related how he had received a phone call this afternoon confirming that he has cancer. He has been having frequent nosebleeds and bouts of vomiting. He has Leukemia. We guessed his age at about 25 years old.
Suddenly Q's broken toe which was throbbing under the table didn't seem like such a big deal to him anymore. Len's constant foot pain became a minor issue. The myriad of crises that frequently besiege us were reduced to mere annoyances. Here before us was a young man whose adult life was just getting underway, and in a matter of a few hours all his aspirations, his hopes, his plans, had been yanked out from under him and cruelly replaced with dark, ominous prospects of illness, pain, hospitalization and chemo-therapy with all it's miserable side-effects.
My immediate impulse was to jump up and hold him in my arms. I held back, as I feared that such a gesture would push him over the edge and he would break into uncontrollable sobbing. Instead we asked him if he prayed. He assured us that he did. We asked him if he had family. He lives with his brother, and plans to move back in with his father during the chemo. He said that his father is his best friend. We are thankful that he is a young man of faith, and that he has a strong, supportive family to see him through this ordeal. We assured him that we would be praying for him also.
We left the restaurant in a somber mood, each feeling that we had gained new perspectives. I thought of the saying I once copied into my notebook, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
8 comments:
wow, that's rough.
great new picture btw.
How sad. Good thing you didn't get angry with him. That's a great lesson. Who said the quote at the end? I'd love to make a reminder card with that quote on my blog.
P.S. YEAH, you are back!
Thanks for sharing that. It is a sobering reminder on many levels. Life is precious.
Hi Heather,
The original quote that I had copied down was the "Message of Inspiration" in the Church News many years ago and the author was listed as anonymous. But upon further research I discovered that the statement was made by none other than Plato, the philosopher and educator who lived from 427-347 B.C.
It seems that great wisdom such as this never gets old!
Steven Covey tells a story about being on a subway, and a father with several young children come aboard. The children are running around and yelling and fighting with each other, but the father does nothing. After a while, Covey approaches the father and says something like "don't you think you should control your children?" The father agrees with Covey and apologizes, and explains that they have just left the hospital where his wife and thier mother passed away. He says that the children are not dealing with it very well, and he guessed that he wasn't either. We just never know what other people are dealing with.
I remember a quote, something like "treat each person as if they were in desperate circumstances, and you will be right 99% of the time."
Thanks, Len for the added insights and the great quote. That's another one for my notebook!
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