It's Hard Being a Human

This isn’t my story to tell, but I’m going to tell it anyway.

My best friend has had an uphill battle for quite a while now. Even more so in the last year.

Her most recent battle. Brain surgery.

Notice, I use the word “battle.” That’s what it is. It’s a battle. The war is far from over, and at the end of this war, she will have triumphed.

Recently, we had a conversation about the events after her successful surgery. She was telling me of how she told her surgeon, “You saved my life.” This sparked a whole thought provoking conversation and thoughts that haven’t left me since.

“You saved my life…”

How often do we throw those words around? How often do we tell people that? How often do people tell us that? What do they mean?

Sometimes… they mean nothing. Sometimes, they are just given to someone who saves your butt from a deadline or lends you a few dollars. Often met with a head nod, a smile, or “it was no problem.”

“You saved my life…”

But this time, this time someone did save her life. And as we had this conversation, as she conveyed to me the conversation that she had with this man, tears came to my eyes. He did save her life. He actually, factually, without any question to it, saved her life. She was almost “not there.” This conversation could have never been had. Those tears that welled up in my eyes, could have been wails of pain and sorrow as opposed to the tears of gratitude that they were.

“You saved my life…”

This was his job. He paid thousands upon thousands of dollars to learn a skill and make thousands and thousands of dollars. This was not the first life he saved and it will not be the last. This, some might say, was “another day at the office.”

But in that moment, when she thanked him and said, “You saved my life,” he looked her in the eye and said, “You’re welcome.” It was heartfelt. It was genuine. She felt it. She was seen. She didn’t feel seen, she WAS seen.

And though I’m a third party to this conversation, I felt it. Though I wasn’t there to feel the air, the vibe in the room, I felt the heaviness of it through the account of the conversation.

This is not his job. This is not his profession. This is his life. To save others.

But that’s not all…

He saved her life in other ways. Ways that aren’t my story to tell. Ways that I know. Ways that I’ll never know. That saving of a life, of her life, started at the a superficial level and went deeply into her heart, her soul. It traveled. It radiated. It gleams. It shines.

You know, this piece went a totally different direction than what I intended. It started as a piece about how trivial words are and how we really don’t dissect the meaning of what we say. It started as a reiteration of how important words are. But.. here we are.

Dr. whoever you are, thank you for saving her life.