A light within

She is an 80-year-old woman.

She has had an anal verge carcinoma in 2002 and has been using colostomy bags for the last 8 years.

Yet she jokes about how eating prunes resulted in her changing her bag 5 times in one night.

She has crippling rheumatoid arthritis that makes her fingers deformed and flare-ups that make sleep scarce.

Yet she talks about how fortunate she is to have it mainly in her fingers and less in the other joints.

She has got a rare lung condition the has resulted in a huge empyema in her right lung, 3 unsucessful surgeries and currently (awaiting) a lobe removal.

Yet she remarks that she feels special to be the only one in Australia with that condition.

When I told her how brave I think she is, she tells me in her beautiful accent (not Aussie):

” Darling you must count your blessings. I’m not saying be happy in sickness, but I believe in being grateful for life”

Intrigued by this lovely old lady, I probed into the origins of her accent ( I couldn’t tell if it was Italian/ Bulgarian…no clue) only to find out that she is from Vienna.

She is a holocaust survivor, who came to Australia with the help of an uncle at 17-years of age. She had been incarcerated in a concentration camp before that, where she lost her entire family (parents and a brother). Eventually after 2 year in Aus she married and had 3 children only to find herself at her husband’s funeral 8 years later. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage at a tender age of 33.

After listening to her story I told her how sorry I was to hear about all of this. To which she replied:

“Darling, do you believe in God?”. I noded and she proceeded to say

“If you count your blessings you’ll see He never shortchanges you. That’s how you’ll get through life, at least that’s how I got through life”

Tears welled up in my eyes. I was truly touched. I had nothing to say in response to her.

She then held my hand, gave it a squeeze and said,

“I will always remember you, Sue was it? I’m blessed to have met you and you’ll make a wonderful doctor.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I smiled and said nothing more- I couldn’t.

And I will never forget her too. I’m blessed to have met her and to be convicted of life’s beauty and God’s sovereignty in such a humble way.

I’ve decided that’s how I want to get through life.

~ by treeandme on February 5, 2010.