Puzzle Piece

I was down with Chris at the Cancer Center at University Hospital last week.  He is getting the second of three cyber knife treatments.

The Cancer Center is an amazing place.  You will be sitting there and a Dad and his 8 year old kid will walk out of treatment area both bald and looking like hell and you are not sure who is the patient.  But you know that one of them is bald and does not have to be and they are hanging on to each other hands like there is no tomorrow.  People have life changing discussions about upcoming treatments and prognosis in the most matter of fact way that you can.   It is a humbling place because what ever you thought was a problem in your life becomes pretty insignificant. 

So when Chris goes in, I sit at a table with a puzzle on it that I was working on from last time.  After a short couple of minutes, I get a tap on the shoulder and a lady asks me if she can help me.   I tell her of course and pull up a chair for her.  She is engaging and a talker.  I do more listening than talking but I genuinely enjoy her company.  We are both nervous and it gives us a brief opportunity to not be in a waiting room in a Cancer Center.

As we are talking an older guy who is patient comes over and reaches between us (there are only about 15 puzzle pieces left) and he picks one up and goes back to his seat.  For me, anyone sitting in that waiting area has an automatic pass.  If he had elected to tip the table over, I would have quietly picked up the pieces and put them back in the box.  The lady I was with paused for a minute and then went right back to our conversation.  After a couple of minutes he old guys says "Aren't you going to ask me why I did that?"  He is grinning away and you cannot help but smile back at him.   I ask him why he did it and he said he always wanted to put the last piece of a puzzle in place.  He walks back over, looks at the board and puts the piece in the area that it looks like it belongs in, laughs again and sits down.

We get down to the last three pieces and the lady stops talking, winks at me and picks up a piece and walks over and hands it to the old guy.  He looks up at her and then the puzzle and says "really?".   And she says, yea, put the last piece in.

So the guy is beaming and he gets up puts in the last puzzle piece, puts his hands on his hips and he is beaming and he looks at us both and says 'thank you very much"

And for a brief minute all three of us are not in the waiting room at the Cancer Center at University Hospital.

It did not cure anyone, but it was a small moment of grace in a sea of crap that made a huge difference.   A life well lived is a collection of a lot of small moments of grace that are given and received.  It is equally important that you are able to receive them as well as give them.

Love Dad