These are such lovely stories, they brought tears come to my eyes. And don’t hate me, but WingNut’s comment still has me snickering.
While there are so many great things that others have done for me in my life, one sticks out.
My mother-in-law was terminally ill with a very rare disease. Because my father-in-law had to work many hours due to mounting medical bills, I quit my job to take care of her for the last year and a half as she was pretty much bed bound. She ended up in intensive care on several occasions. She had so many health issues, including skin that would tear off if regular IV tape was used and veins that were so weak they would collapse, and because the hospital consistently rotated it’s staff, no one would remember her ailments.
As a result, and despite very strong and sometimes hostile hospital resistance, we decided we would always have someone with her. Since my father-in-law and husband were both the owners of their businesses and were swamped, I basically lived in the intensive care unit with mom for weeks. During a particularly rough period where mom would panic if she did not see me in the room, I was dirty, hungry, sick of hospital cuisine, and exhausted. I had taken three of those metal cafeteria-type chairs and lined them up to sleep on in the room, stealing a pillow and using my coat for a cover since they would not let me bring in a blanket of my own.
I had reached a point of feeling sorry for myself, crabby, impatient, and just wanted to go home. Just when I thought I would break, I woke up one evening to find that during their shift change, someone had set up the bedside table with a home cooked meal, a blanket and fresh pillow, and one of the plastic hospital bins filled with little toiletries and towel. Next to it was a card that simply said, “Your mom knows you are here, and she will always remember.”
I never found out who did it, but that one act of kindness helped me make it thru.