While playing a game with friends at a coffee shop, we had to think deeply about which of the five senses we couldn’t live without. While everyone was in deep thought, I too was trying to contemplate, but my mind escaped to an incident I had experienced some time ago…
I was meeting some of my son’s friends since he now was living a single life away from home. One particular friend had insisted on meeting me and like every mother I was happy to get to know his college buddies. We picked a cute busy spot for coffee. Coffee makes everything more palatable and so as the coffee was being consumed our conversations also flowed. We discussed the cold weather up north and university life and her future plans. We shared some pastries and hesitantly endured the noisy crowded quarters.
We finally said our goodbyes and as my son and I walked away, his friend immediately texted him. ‘I would love to sit in a quiet room and listen to your mum’s talk all day.’ How bizarre I thought, but what a sweet gesture. By nature I am soft spoken, I believe I speak in a clear and lucid style but the text puzzled me. My son began to apologize profusely; he hadn’t warned me earlier, as he explained;
I didn’t notice that they picked the quieter corner of the busy coffee shop and she pulled up her chair right next to mine or that she chose to sit at a certain angle. I didn’t give a second thought that I had repeated everything I said and I didn’t realize my son was talking louder than usual. I didn’t even notice her silence and attentiveness while I talked softly. This young lady was losing her hearing and it left me feeling crushed. She was just starting out in life and whatever the cause maybe she wasn’t going to get better but worse. How could she live without hearing? Everyday and all day I listen to music. To not have music, I couldn’t even begin to imagine. How was she even navigating college lectures? How cruel, I thought. I ask about her often and although my intentions mean well, I cannot stop thinking of what the future holds. Like every adolescent she too is engulfed in her busy life. She has no choice but to live it to the fullest and perhaps that will be her way of dealing with a painful reality.
It taught me a lesson that day; how easily we take things for granted. We all are so quick to judge and compare and point fingers. But the book always holds so much more than what we see on the cover. Those pages are also filled with discomfort and sorrow and shame. Some chapters are full of life but there are just as many that keep us from living a normal, fruitful life. We all want to flip the pages and get on with it, but sometimes reading thoroughly through the uncomfortable parts makes us understand the whole story which in turn provides some clarity.
Not only in our own lives but in the lives of others we speculate. I taught my children to always smile, say the first good morning, hold the door open, be polite and respectful because it doesn’t cost you anything to be kind. It is now I understood the burdens some of us carry silently and how just a simple gesture could in fact make someone’s day.
It was this young lady that somehow inspired me a little, she made me feel as if I had so much to offer. My small acts of kindness, giving my time, my attentiveness to someone in need, my ability to listen and speak clearly and softly does make an impact, if only to her. I felt her one compliment was worth a thousand.
Hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, touching even the simple act of breathing are taken for granted by all of us. Perhaps it’s moments like these that allow us to align our priorities and make our problems seem so trivial in comparison. We should all do it, take a moment to be thankful for the very things the less fortunate wish for.
I looked up from my empty coffee cup as my friends awaited my answer. I couldn’t pick a sense I could live without that afternoon, they are all equally important to me, but what’s more important is that I embrace the fact that I have all of them and that in itself is a blessing.