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Upon re-entry into Humanity

For the past two years, I have been more or less a hermit. At least in terms of my physical exposure to other human beings. This is not my nature. I am a card-carrying extrovert who is energized by being around other people and engaging in lively conversations!

When the world closed down in 2020 I was in a tailspin. My routine of traveling two or three times a month to visit clients coast to coast and attend meetings was stopped. My commute became from my kitchen to my home office vs. through the Atlanta Hartsfield airport.

Over the past 25 months, I have only occasionally eaten in open-air restaurants, I’ve only attended gatherings of less than four people (who have all been vaccinated) and my daily exposure to humanity has been on the Zoom screen of my computer.

Now the idea of traveling two or three times a month on an airplane and staying in a variety of Hampton Inn hotels, ordering the proverbial consultant’s...

  Image Above: Beach sand magnified 250 times

  Last time, I wrote about the importance of taking a moment and “taking a knee” to acknowledge the human being in our care; of looking beyond the chart, if you will, to honor our common humanity. It’s easy to lose sight of that when care providers are running on empty, overwhelmed and skating on the edge of frustration as so many do. And yet, we too are only human, and some days, that doesn’t feel like enough. I’d been thinking a lot about that this past week – and then this poem found its way into my inbox, sent along via a friend. Coincidence? I think not.

            It takes the words of someone as thoughtful and caring as Heidi O’Neil to remind us of the profound and – yes - holy nature of what we undertake in caring for the dying, and to remind us how much they give us in the process.  They are our teachers.

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