5.5: Wildfires of Kindness

Once upon a few days ago, there was a Young Maiden who faced a medical procedure that scared the bejesus – I’m talking the out-and-out bejesus – out of her. She is, you see, a professional actor and singer (which means her voice is her instrument) and this procedure of which I speak is a biopsy of her thyroid. If you’ll run your fingers up and down the center of your neck you’ll be tactically, acquainted with the spot your thyroid calls home. To have Strangers – no matter how proficient and well-trained they are (and they are) – stick a big, long, shiny, sharp needle stuck into your throat while you’re wide awake is, as you can surely imagine, a Very Scary Proposition.

This Young Maiden and her Mother The Crone, expressed her anxiety to the surgeon, who, I hasten to assure you, is A Fantastic, Crackerjack Surgeon, but a woman who thinks and speaks and lives in words of science, not feelings, which caused the anxiety to rise to flooding proportions.

Unbeknownst to The Maiden, Her Mother The Crone emailed her primary care physician – we’ll call him Frank – and her uncle – we’ll call him Donn – to implore their help. Both are wicked caring, intelligent men who do not dismiss such things as depression and anxiety and panic attacks as the marking of the dreaded hysterical woman; know the value of kindness in the healthcare arena; and have taken significant measures to provide a higher than you can imagine level of kindness and caring.

Ordinarily this is where I’d beseech you to pray or petition the goddesses or send positive thoughts and energy with The Young Maiden’s name (which happens to be Alison) and all her medical staff on it tomorrow around 11 a.m. Eastern time as she undergoes the biopsy. And I certainly would appreciate all the goodness you can muster and spare in whatever form best suits you.

I’m also wondering . . . What If instead of keeping it on the plane of thought, we put it into practice? What If we – each and every one of us – follow the lead of Frank and Donn and perform at least one act of above and beyond/outside the norm kindness – be the beneficiaries known or unknown to us – on Thursday 8/6/15 to honor the two of them, support the entire medical team, and gently hold Alison by filling the world with goodness. If you’re in – and I certainly hope you are – maybe you’ll leave your story in the comments here or over in the world of facebook.

Even if I never know who you are or what you do to lend support, Thank you. From the bottom of my mother’s heart . . . Thank you.

(I’ll let you know how it turns out.)