What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

“St David of Wales famously reminded us ‘Do the little things’”
 

It was a summer of contrasts, fearful imaginings and new beginnings.

I met a man.  A real man.  My tumultuous and never should have happened marriage was dispersing into an empty painful divorce. We couldn’t be amicable as we never had been.

My goal now was to finish the nurse training I never should have left. This summer I worked for a nursing agency. It was fantastic even sublime against the backdrop of being single again, skint and childless.

The man I met was not about to change all this in the way I had always looked for. The way I had always dictated to God I would like (and deserve) to happen. Maybe I was finally broken enough to hear.

The man told me to feed the birds outside in his beautiful garden.  I went outside but forgot the birds as I had another cigarette.  I thought the man wouldn’t notice. I went back in to check he was okay and again he said please feed the birds. He could hear the hungry avian crew outside. I wasn’t alive to those sounds.

I got over my self and fed the birds and did that without prompting every morning I was sent to provide him with care. And I started to notice that this man in his forties paralysed from a cancerous tumour and married to a woman he loved, woke up thinking of others.

The man taught me many things that summer. That self pity is an option if you want to choose the bitter path. Any act away from that like feeding the birds is a step towards peace and humility instead.

Feeders outside my kitchen window – a constant source of joy