Your Light is Shining Where You Least Expect

This post is by Caroline!

I got two voicemails from my mom last week that socked me in the gut in totally different ways.

The first was a very tense message saying that a dear relative was in the ICU. I was walking out of– of all places– tango class, and stopped dead in my tracks as soon as I heard. My first-cousin-once-removed M. had had a pulmonary embolism, almost without warning, and had been hospitalized a couple hours before.

Terrifying.

We all live in different states, so I was kept in the loop through frequent phone and Facebook updates. M. was moved out of the ICU after a couple days, and with that was allowed to move around again. We weren’t sure how long she was going to be stuck in the hospital, but the prognosis looked pretty good.

The second voicemail came a few days later, as I was leaving work. “Hi sweetie,” my mom said. “I just wanted to let you know that M. is in her own room now. The nurses were teaching her to give herself injections of something, I can’t remember what, but anyways– she may have to do it every day, she may only have to do it while she’s in the hospital. She said she was kind of scared and really didn’t want to do it, but then she thought, ‘if Caroline can do it, so can I.’ And that got her over it. She gave herself the shots just fine! I’ll call again when I hear more.”

Amazing.

M. left the hospital, thank goodness. She later wrote to me, “You were great inspiration for me as I am sure you are for many people.” Me? Really? Truth be told, I had no idea. After a while, the needles and the blood and the fears become such a part of life that they’re routine. Shooting up ye olde insulin is just what I have to do every day to stay alive and well. I didn’t realize that it made a difference to someone else.

But it can, and it does. And you, dear reader, whether or not you have diabetes– you are shining your light where you least expect, beaming inspiration to someone in the universe whether you realize or not.

This is what I will remember, when the road is rough and I just want to give up on taking care of myself: that once, without knowing, my strength gave someone else the courage to keep going.