I blew off Thursday… Had lots going on – still do… I’ll be posting about some of that. Probably. Never really know what’s occupying my tiny little mind from day to day, and where it’s going to take me. But Thursday itself struck me as a kinda perfect day…
It started perfectly – I went into my Starbuck’s and when the barista asked how I was, expecting my response “awesome…”, I didn’t disappoint him… There was a guy there with his baby in a stroller grabbing his morning coffee who turned to me smiling and asked why I would be awesome at this hour in the morning… I told him – the wallet came out and opened and he saw a beautiful smile, and I explained who she was… I explained what she means to me.
A few moments later, after the barista handed me my coffee, I stopped next to him at the bar to put in my Splenda and he turned to me again and said, “Thanks – you just made my day…” He may not realize this, but he made mine too…
At work, leaving for lunch, I bumped into a guy I really like in the elevator… He’s always been an incredible supporter – always hollering when he’s seen me on TV or in the paper – he asked me how I was, then answered himself for me… It went something like this: “How are you?!? I know, I know, you’re breathing… Dave is always, ‘couldn’t be better”, and Steve is always ‘breathing’…” I didn’t have to say anything – I just smiled… I know he wasn’t being sarcastic – I know he was saying it with some admiration… I know he knows how I feel about the gift I’ve been given
At the end of the day – I was out buying a gift for someone very special to me… The shopkeeper’s name is Ed – I met him Thursday and learned of his shop on Thursday… He guided me through what I needed and I explained to him who it was for and why the colors I was asking for meant something to me… We started talking about health and drugs and whatnot – Ed had a stroke a while back and he’s lost much of the use of his right hand and arm, and he’s survived cancer twice in the past few years – he runs the shop himself and I was struck by his gentleness and kindness, and his passion for what he does… I told him about Kari and her gift to me… I had the feeling that we both had a deeper understanding than many of how precious life is…
Earlier in the week – I had a comment on a post I did about 18 months ago – like any blogger, I’m always tickled when I get a comment after posting something, but 18 months is a while ago. The lady was apparently Googling a friend to find out that he’d passed away and had become an organ donor… She let me know that Nathan was a good-hearted friend, down to being an organ donor, and she hadn't realized he'd died. She let me know that she too is an organ donor. I wrote about him in a post called “Leaving Dinosaurs”… It was one of my more favorite posts – so I’m glad she resurrected it for me… In it, there is a little story written by Nathan, who became a donor – it talked about the path he was on in life, and that he didn’t know where it was going, but it seemed to be a very nice path… The last paragraph in his story is:
A little girl hugged me today. I was walking out the front door of Buckman Elementary School and was chased down and hugged. It was Disneyland and Circus Peanuts and Star Wars Toys. I damn near cried. I’m not sure where the path I’m on leads and I don’t care. It’s a really nice path.
I think about Nathan from time to time – about him being an organ donor, but also his feeling about life at the moment he wrote that story – about being on a “really nice path…”
This post is just a placeholder – I haven’t missed a weekly post since I started here and I’m kinda proud of that. I didn’t have something totally ready yet, about organ donation and whatnot – yet this is still a little about that… I have a lot of days like Thursday – the really nice days are stringing into a really nice path…
