As we sail through this journey we call life,
we come across different people; some good, some bad and others in
between. Only a certain few succeed in
leaving an impact on our lives. One of those
people is a teacher/friend whom I will refer to as Mrs. “R”.
The longer I know Mrs. “R”, the more amazed I
am by her. I admire her strength; her calmness and her smiling face, no matter
what she was going through. I respect
her as a person and a friend and most of all I applaud her unfailing
“Rock-as-Gibraltar” Faith that has allowed her to surmount
tremendous difficulties.
Mrs. “R” walked into our lives more than ten
years ago when she literally walked into our home to work with my special needs
daughter. We developed a friendship that blossomed for sometime but then
drifted apart due to no fault of hers. I
was riding on the “I-will-fix-my-special-needs-child” wagon and did not want or
need any diversion from that mission. Anyone else would have probably held a
grudge, but not Mrs. “R”. I was happy
that we were able to pick up our friendship a few years later and resume it as
if nothing had ever occurred in the past.
Mrs. “R” became very ill with cancer this
past fall. I desperately wanted to stand by her side and help in any way that I
could. It seems that God led me in a
different way for my mother fell very ill also and was diagnosed with a brain
aneurism only a week after Mrs. “R’s” diagnoses. My family was thrown into a complex whirlwind
of medical as well as emotional traumas. Not only did the procedure to save my mother
had left her disabled but the lack of
medical insurance contributed to mountains of financial burdens that added more
stress to the situation. Needless to say, our sorrows consumed our family and
we just had no more reserve for anything else.
In spite of all this, I never once forgot
Mrs. “R”. I wondered about how she was doing and prayed for whatever God’s plan
was for her. He had not let her down in
the past, so I knew that His intervention would pull her through this time
around also.
I was both glad and relieved when I saw Mrs.
“R” on the first day of summer school. She had overcome her illness and was
ready to get back to doing what she loved the most, being a teacher to “Her”
special needs kids. She was assigned a
class at my special needs daughter’s summer school and looked wonderful as she
welcomed “Her” kids to school.
As we hugged and embraced that first morning,
I finally explained what has been going on in my family’s situation to Mrs.
“R”. I really wanted her to know that I had not forgotten about her. She informed me of her ordeal and what had
happened during the months I couldn’t contact her. It has been a very rocky road for both Mrs.
“R” and my family. In spite of all that,
Mrs. “R” continued to smile. She
brightened up my morning with that smile. It didn’t surprise me at all to find that she
was
comforting me when I should have been
comforting her. Upon listening to my
story, she held my hands and looked straight into my eyes and sealed our
friendship with one statement: “Just give it to God and don’t ever take it
back”…
Thank you Mrs. “R” for being the type of
person God has intended for you to be.
©
Copyright 2013 .Najwa S. Hirn. All rights reserved
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