Haste to Be...

Around the parking ramp I drove, up and up and up. Past the urgent care floor, past the surgery floor...past patient drop-off spots. As my car circled, I traveled back to 20 months ago, when I first limped into this orthopedic clinic.

That day, I had looked in the rear view mirror. As I pulled my hair tighter, the pony tail holder had snapped. Exhausted from leg pain, I sighed, looking at my still wet-from-the-shower hair. I had asked the receptionist if she could give me a rubber band. She had looked at me skeptically, handing one over with hardly a word. It was nearly New Year's Eve, and we had all probably wanted to be somewhere else.

The doctor had whisked into my exam room. Taking one look at my leg, he had said kindly...

...Julie, we need a scan. I need to see what is going on in your leg.

So last week in the parking ramp, I got out of my car. Everything is slower now, I thought as I walked in to the clinic. My mind wandered as I looked around. Yes, this is where my life changed forever, where my tumor came out of its hiding place. I remembered the Julie of Then...the one who walked quicker, who didn't attract stares, even if she had had stringy hair that day. My hand reached up to touch my hair, now short after chemo.

At the check-in desk, I held tightly to my box, juggling my cane too. Determined to keep my balance. The receptionist looked up, a different one, and kindly this time.

Holding out my box and the envelope, I said to her...

...this is a very important note and gift. I want to thank the doctor...because you see, he saved my life.

I told her my story, instructing her again....

...it is important that I say thank you. With these cupcakes. With this note.

My eyes teared up, hers maybe did too. She said that my story would make her day...and we smiled at one another. Two souls caught up in something pure and right and true, together, before our lives became harried again. But for one moment we had certainty that what the doctor had done was good and deserved a moment of our shared and reverent notice.

It didn't matter that it had taken me longer than I had planned...to get in to tell this doctor thank you. It didn't matter that a misdiagnosis at another clinic had delayed my treatment for five months, before I had found him. The right doctor. It didn't matter that my hair band had broken that day last year.

What mattered were the magic words that hung in the air: thank you.

As I walked out of the clinic, Henri-Frederic Amiel's words echoed softly in my heart:

"We don't have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk this way with us. So, be swift to love and make haste to be kind."

There are six more notes to deliver, more cupcakes to bring...because many people stitched me back together.

And any day is a good day to say...

...thank you, thank you, thank you...once and a million times more, thank you.