A customer came into my place of work yesterday to set up an advertisment for a classic car he had for sale. I typed up all of his information and gave him his total. As he was handing me the money, he told me that he was only selling the car because cancer had taken away most of the feeling in his fingers, and that he could no longer keep the car in good shape because of it. On his way out, he told me a joke, perhaps to cheer us both up.
I spent the rest of the day thinking about how hard it would be to deal with the fact that an uncontrollable force such as cancer stripped you of the ability to enjoy the things you are passionate about in life. The man seemed to have a handle on it. When he told me about his predicament, he wasn't looking for sympathy. He was simply venting about a particular frustration in the fashion that we would vent about having to take a late lunch, or standing in a long line at the grocery store. It was hard for me to process this at first. I hope that if something like that ever happened to me, I'd be able to have that kind of attitude.
I spent the rest of the day thinking about how hard it would be to deal with the fact that an uncontrollable force such as cancer stripped you of the ability to enjoy the things you are passionate about in life. The man seemed to have a handle on it. When he told me about his predicament, he wasn't looking for sympathy. He was simply venting about a particular frustration in the fashion that we would vent about having to take a late lunch, or standing in a long line at the grocery store. It was hard for me to process this at first. I hope that if something like that ever happened to me, I'd be able to have that kind of attitude.
No comments:
Post a Comment