Smile for Me
I talked with Kerry at the hospital today.
She sits at Peter’s bedside, keeping him company and keeping his spirits up.
He was hospitalized last week with yet another painful complication in his battle with cancer. The doctors plans to send him back home next week, where he can commence hospice care in the comfort of his own surroundings.
Peter and Kerry have been fighting this cancer demon together for the past six years, while working and raising their two young children.
I asked Kerry how she is maintaining her “brave front” for Peter, as she appears to be so calm at his bedside, while her husband’s stamina slips away.
She replied, “He has asked me to smile for him.
He says, ‘Smile for me.’
He doesn’t want me to appear to be sad when I am around him. It makes him happy to see me smile.”
So, smile she does. Smile even though her heart is breaking and she has so much weight on her mind; the care of her husband, his comfort level, his relief from pain, the care of her children at home, preparing them for the loss of their father, the physical and financial maintenance of their home, their careers, their plans for the future, and so on.
Life isn’t supposed to be like this. Peter and Kerry didn’t plan for this when they married fifteen years ago. Yet, here they are today. Here are the cards as they have been dealt. Kerry cannot eradicate the cancer.
She cannot eliminate the physical pain for Peter; only the opiates can accomplish that. What she can do, is smile, smile for him, turn up the corners of her mouth and do what all of the oncologists and hospice nurses cannot do…smile for her lover/partner/husband/father of her children, and give him the gift of peace of mind, that she loves him, and is there for him.
Often it seems so very hard for us to smile, most certainly when we are sad, stressed and angry. Yet smiling is a simple expression, a free gesture that costs us nothing to share.
At the very least, we can smile at strangers on the street and make the brief human connection of “Hello, I acknowledge you as another human being, another living creature with a soul” a soul that may be hurting today, just as you walk along the sidewalk immersed in your own sadness, your own worry, your own stress.
If Kerry can muster the courage to smile for Peter today, surely you can smile for a stranger. Smile and nod your head, making that brief eye contact of acknowledgment of another. You may be surprised, that person may smile back! Perhaps they may not smile and may even scowl at you, but certainly your smile has initiated a ray of sunshine that will eventually break through that scowl.
Extend that free gesture.
Smile for the stranger.
Smile for Peter.
Smile for me.
Peter passed away February 28, 2008, five days after this essay was written
As with all the stories in the “Red Tailed Hawk” series, this is a true story.
An excerpt from “Where the Red Tailed Hawk Flies: Healing for the Heartbroken”
and “Love Endures Cancer”
Copyright © 2008 by Gabriella Graham/Red Tailed Hawk Publishing
Visit Gabriella at www.wheretheredtailedhawkflies.com
I talked with Kerry at the hospital today.
She sits at Peter’s bedside, keeping him company and keeping his spirits up.
He was hospitalized last week with yet another painful complication in his battle with cancer. The doctors plans to send him back home next week, where he can commence hospice care in the comfort of his own surroundings.
Peter and Kerry have been fighting this cancer demon together for the past six years, while working and raising their two young children.
I asked Kerry how she is maintaining her “brave front” for Peter, as she appears to be so calm at his bedside, while her husband’s stamina slips away.
She replied, “He has asked me to smile for him.
He says, ‘Smile for me.’
He doesn’t want me to appear to be sad when I am around him. It makes him happy to see me smile.”
So, smile she does. Smile even though her heart is breaking and she has so much weight on her mind; the care of her husband, his comfort level, his relief from pain, the care of her children at home, preparing them for the loss of their father, the physical and financial maintenance of their home, their careers, their plans for the future, and so on.
Life isn’t supposed to be like this. Peter and Kerry didn’t plan for this when they married fifteen years ago. Yet, here they are today. Here are the cards as they have been dealt. Kerry cannot eradicate the cancer.
She cannot eliminate the physical pain for Peter; only the opiates can accomplish that. What she can do, is smile, smile for him, turn up the corners of her mouth and do what all of the oncologists and hospice nurses cannot do…smile for her lover/partner/husband/father of her children, and give him the gift of peace of mind, that she loves him, and is there for him.
Often it seems so very hard for us to smile, most certainly when we are sad, stressed and angry. Yet smiling is a simple expression, a free gesture that costs us nothing to share.
At the very least, we can smile at strangers on the street and make the brief human connection of “Hello, I acknowledge you as another human being, another living creature with a soul” a soul that may be hurting today, just as you walk along the sidewalk immersed in your own sadness, your own worry, your own stress.
If Kerry can muster the courage to smile for Peter today, surely you can smile for a stranger. Smile and nod your head, making that brief eye contact of acknowledgment of another. You may be surprised, that person may smile back! Perhaps they may not smile and may even scowl at you, but certainly your smile has initiated a ray of sunshine that will eventually break through that scowl.
Extend that free gesture.
Smile for the stranger.
Smile for Peter.
Smile for me.
Peter passed away February 28, 2008, five days after this essay was written
As with all the stories in the “Red Tailed Hawk” series, this is a true story.
An excerpt from “Where the Red Tailed Hawk Flies: Healing for the Heartbroken”
and “Love Endures Cancer”
Copyright © 2008 by Gabriella Graham/Red Tailed Hawk Publishing
Visit Gabriella at www.wheretheredtailedhawkflies.com