Monday Moods: We Are All Human

I large chucnk of my professional life I worked with frail and sick human beings. For about nine-years I did volunteer work with a hospice program, on call for bedside estate planning.  

Some things I learned along the way. 

We are all human and the human condition is not always rose colored or smelling like rose. 

Illness sometimes brings out the best in people. I remember one woman who reconciled with her only child, after years of refusing contact because he had not followed the path in life that she wished. (He rode Harley and worked as bartender in Key West rather than going into the family business.) When she called, he returned home and provided tender hands on care to empower his mother to live out her final days at home.  

Illness and death sometimes bring out the worst in people. I spent a couple of hours waiting for a locksmith to change the locks on a house, so that the widow could go make make funeral arrangements without the kids stripping the house of valuables. She was afraid to leave her own home. 

Angus in St Andrews posted a link to a news story recently, sort of an editorial by a journalist who was interviewing civilians in Ukraine. A family stepped forward, and the youngest child, a child who had lived his entire life in a war zone was wearing a T-shirt that translated in English read, "always be kind."  

If a child in a war zone can, we all can. 

A funky and offbeat post this Monday, maybe that is how I am feeling.