This week is a Christmas week. Although Taiwan does not celebrate the Christmas holiday, I asked students to share a story of 'love, kindness, and compassion' at this week's English coffee social hour.
I shared the following story with my students.
Larry is my tennis buddy in Wisconsin. We have been playing tennis together for Monday morning tennis drill for several years. This is the drill on Monday morning, 6:00 AM to 7:30 AM and it takes great determination to get up in the very early cold and dark morning in the winter days of Wisconsin. Larry also organized Saturday's men's double league on Saturday morning. I also play in that league for many years.
Larry is in the 40's. A physician himself, he eats right and exercise everyday. He is cheerful and no one expects something bad would happen to him when one day he had a routine physical examination and asked his doctor to check on one of the strange spots on his skin.
Larry's fate suddenly changed when the doctor told him that the strange spot on his skin was actually a malignant form of skin cancer. A follow-up check revealed even a worse news: the cancer has metastasized to his lymph system. Without treatment, he is expected to live for another 6 months. and there are no effective treatments available guaranteed to cure his illness.
When Larry told us this bad news, all of us except one, Robert, were shocked but did not know what to do to comfort his fear and pain. Robert, a surgeon himself, came to Larry saying nothing but hug Larry. Larry was in tears, saying that was what he really needed at the moment.
We all need each other. We have our tender moments. At those moment, we all need a good hug to comfort our fear and pain.
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