Questions

We ask questions sometimes not really looking for an answer.



As a nurse it is a struggle to listen, over and over, to pain, stress, anguish,

extremes,
loss of control,
changes
inevitable,
frightening,
unexpected
unanswerable

questions.


Often I have had revelations by asking a simple ho-hum, fill in the dead space w/small talk
question.


One day while caring for a man from Canada,



who was seeking better treatment available to the wealthy



(american fee for service),



it began as a ho-hum day.

I felt sorry for the guy and I thought,

all the currency in the world

cannot buy you out of this

ill health.


He talked about his life and then we got to friends.

They had abandoned him.

His fancy house and lifestyle

was empty now,

filled with hollow memories of fair weather friends,

afraid to see a dying amongst their
group,
a weakling,

a meek one.




As I read the Psalm Challenge at Daily Athens,
I remembered that story

of the man,
lonely, with riches, searching for a cure,
defined now by his illness,
not riches.





For me a lesson to be learned again and again,

it is not what you have,

it is how you live.