This weekend I went to visit a co-worker who was recovering from knee surgery. He was in the rehab wing of the hospital. We were chatting and looking at cards when a nurse brought his roommate in - a 24 year-old man who'd had a major stroke.
I was very uncomfortable with this, representing so much devastation to such a young person.
Then the nurse came back and said to him, "ok honey, let's check your blood sugar". My friend lowered his voice and said, "he's got real bad diabetes - that's what caused it".
I felt like I was going to burst into tears. Why, when I was having such a good day, did I have to be reminded of the devastation that db can cause? It just wasn't fair.
I calmed down and traveled through the rest of the weekend with the image of that man hanging around the edges of my mind, as I tried to stuff it away in a back file.
This morning on the bus I thought about my What Helps? list, but didn't feel very enthusiastic. One of the items was "be nice to someone". Well, that opportunity probably wasn't gonna happen at work. We are all covering for people who are on vacation and everyone is in a general state of crabbiness.
The day ended and I was browsing through the grocery store. I saw that raspberries were at a low price - 2 6 ounce trays for $4. That's about as cheap as they'll get, so I put two trays in my basket.
As I was leaving te store, a rumpled street person said, "ma'am, can you spare some change?". I told him no, but he might like some raspberries and handed him one of the boxes. He carefully opened it and said "have they been washed?" Well, no, I didn't think they had as I'd just bought them. I said "let's go into Starbucks and get some water". He told me that water cost a quarter and he had already asked them for some.
I went in and got a big glass of water (yes, for a quarter) and we sat down at a wire table and carefully poured it over the berries. I left him seated with a big craggy grin on his face, popping them in his mouth one by one.

I got home with one carton, and that was certainly enough for me.



And, by then, I'd forgotten about the bothersome chatter in my head.


PS - This post was going to be titled, Giving the Raspberries but Blooger wouldn't let me type in a title.