I met a man named Donald recently and the moment I first saw him I knew he was in trouble
Donald, (or Don as he soon asked me to call him) was literally blown away by the approximately 20 MPH wind we had that day in Central Ohio.
In fact, when I first noticed him, he looked like he was “frozen in time” because he was leaning way up and to the right and wasn’t moving.
When I saw this, I thought he was going to topple over (or worse), so I sprung into action to help Don.
What I didn’t know was that in my efforts to help Don, it would turn into such an amazing set of life lessons for me that day.
My new friend Don was 75 and had a stroke at 54. Much of the left side of his body was paralyzed.
He couldn’t walk normally like me and most of the other people in the mall that day.
All he could do was shuffle half-step after half-step after half-step, first with his 4-pronged cane. Then, when I helped him, he did his shuffling steps with his “good hand” firmly placed on my right shoulder to keep him from falling.
It took us about 30 minutes to finally get Don to the customer service line of the store he was going to.
I waited for him to do his business and then lent him my shoulder once more as I helped him take those little shuffling steps once more back to his handicap-equipped car.
Before I saw Don that day, I had spent the better part of the morning working myself into a nice little funk – not appreciating the wonderful life I have and being pissed off at myself for not being further along than I am in certain parts of it. my life
And then I met Don.
Not an ounce of self-pity
Just sheer will, will and determination.
What would take him 30 minutes to do, you or I could do in 30 seconds
And here is the best part…
There was no whining, no playing the victim, and no sense (that I felt anyway) that there was anything to fear or a reason to give up when the going got tough.
The other thing I noticed was how his condition literally forced him to be in the present moment and not focus on his painful past or anything else. He knew better than anyone that he had to be completely focused on THIS moment or else.
What a wonderful example Don was for me that day.
It puts a whole new perspective on my choice of whether to give in to the voice in my head that says, “You’re too tired to go to the gym.”
It puts a whole new perspective on whether I will be a victim (if only in my mind) of some of my own not-so-smart life choices in the past.
It puts a whole other perspective on what it could be like to love myself and what the importance of not giving up is.
It also puts a whole other perspective on what being kind to myself might look like.
Think about it…
An hour or more to walk about a hundred paces and all he said about it was…
“I guess that wasn’t the best idea to go out on a windy day like this.”
How inspiring….
What a gift Don was to me that day.
All I can say is…
Thanks, Don, for a magical time together.
