The word “help” can be taken so many ways, often times we as humans don’t understand the importance of merely aiding or being sympathetic to one’s feelings. We might just take assistance as a continuous cycle as something to be performed from the goodness of hearts, to not expect anything in the future. Although unexpectedly we may find that helping someone with an intention is for their good, we do not realize the significance and the amount of change that it can contribute through our deeds’ accumulation. The profound effort that derives from our experiences in a way build upon our characters and acts upon our life the way a stone can cause a ripple in a vast ocean, changing life’s perspective and reshaping its abstract purpose.
Excited, proud, and nervous me was now entering the turning doors at the threshold of one of my most beloved opportunities. Through the empty stark white hallways where it smelled of excellent sanitation and maybe fear among the workers who awaited for any mysterious emergency that could take place, I stood gazing, making eye contact with and smiling at every stranger I passed as I crept silently to the room where thankfully others with the same blue polo shirt and khaki pants were eagerly awaiting their new positions like me. Slowly our naïve group was soon broken apart with all of us at various locations around the building. The supervisor soon approached me to tell me my fate, “Honey, now you are a special volunteer, we have you under our newest wing and we think you will befit this position”, as she led me to the elevator doors. We stood gazing at the mirror walls and as I just could not help myself from wondering where she was taking me. The elevator doors opened at the fifth floor and the level was marked by a sign that read “Oncology”. Staring at a collection of papers I was assigned to sort behind a wooden desk accompanied by four other nurses whom I was introduced to, my eyes shifted wondering what was so special about this floor. At that moment, the head nurse on the floor soon asked me to take a visitor to room 523. The lady was very compassionate, but my senses could read clearly the amount of sorrow that she had within her eyes that were slightly swollen presumably from her tears that had been expelled not too long ago. As I stood next to her guiding her to the room, she seemed hesitant to go inside, so I asked her if she would be alright. “I am so sorry. Umm, yes I am quite fine, thank you” was her reply. I smiled trying my best to hide her worries and reassured her that everything would be okay before walking back to the corner I had been sitting in previously.
Asking one of the nearby nurses what the position was for her and what kept her from going into that room with such sorrow, I soon found out that the lady’s husband was diagnosed with a fatal malady that could potentially kill him in a short span of time and that the lady was constantly under the impression to only show him hopefulness and hide her sense of worry that everything was going to be okay when it really was not, made me realize the value of love and the sacrifices that two might take for the other even though their destiny only sees taking them apart. After spending more time with her outside of the room and talking to her whenever she could not bear the sorrow that was imposed with her, I gained a new insight and a new realization to grasp from her bravery and her ability to make her husband not feel her pain. I awaited her presence every day I was there and sooner or later, she had become my companion when I was not running errands. Even though the opportunity was for an internship and insight into the health field, the most important assistance anyone could ever give to someone is to fulfill their happinesss, taking in all their pain as if it was yours. Sharing such a unique bond with a stranger makes you not only aware of another’s perspective, but makes you fortunate for what you have