When we were in hospital with Monika, we got to know her bed neighbor a bit, a 15-year-old girl from Malawi who came to India with her mother for altogether two months in order to have two of her heart’s valves replaced. While the two girls were talking with each other, I had to think of their different reasons for being in hospital and what they might feel for themselves when considering the other one’s medical problems. And what we, ‘healthy’ people should feel when seeing them.
Both girls have suffered from their issue for quite a while, causing their families grief. Both have had their surgery in the same hospital, one having flown across countries for the good service and medical experience, the other one having crossed the border of what was financially possible for herself. Both surgeries were successful but both girls will take time to recover completely.
Who is worse off? Who is better off?
I can only imagine what goes through the young African girl’s mind when seeing Monika, lying there with her big bandages, the visible part of her face in scars. Compassion, maybe pity? She might think ‘I may have two big scars but at least nobody can see them!’ I am quite sure that she is glad to be in her own, unburnt skin.
Monika on the other hand looks at this girl standing at the side of her bed and then sees her suddenly raise a hand to her chest. Pain is visible in the girl’s face for just a second, then it subsides. It is only the wound that hurts but one can imagine the fear that such a pain brings, knowing that the heart is not in its original and healthy state! Anytime it can stop beating and the artificial parts that are now in there may fail. ‘At least my injuries are just on the outside!’ Monika may think. Not beautiful to look at but no danger for life!
Both girls will be alright, playing soon again and enjoying life – because that’s what children do, no matter what. Both are beautiful, in spite of the scars, big and small. They look at each other and compare their injuries. What do we see, think and feel when we look at them?
Compassion is good. It can help someone like Monika who would never have got this treatment were it not for the support of compassionate people around her and around the globe!
With this compassion, you will most certainly feel something like relief and thankfulness. Happiness that you are unscarred and the realization that your own problems are actually tiny, unimportant, compared to what these two teenagers are going through!
I think we should focus on this feeling from time to time: it doesn't matter what situation you are in, what you are used to complain about, there is someone who has it worse than you but copes better! Yes, someone who is happier because he knows how to appreciate life! You are down because you don't have your dream figure, you feel ugly because you are losing hair, your breasts are too small or too big or your muscles not in shape. You are unhappy because of small things in life. See the big picture and realize that you can be happy for what you have and who you are!
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