[October 21-27, 2018 is Respiratory Care Week. Today's guest post is by Hannah Medina, respiratory therapist from Louisiana.]
Working in the medical field, I can attest to the reality that life can change in an instant. I’ve been a respiratory therapist for five years now, and I’ve experienced many tragedies that make you want to call your loved ones, hold them tighter, apologize to every person you’ve ever wronged. These traumas have sent me home in a fury of grief that sometimes doesn’t leave my side for days. I’ve heard the agonizing scream of a mother who lost her child in a traumatic accident. I was the one breathing for her daughter through an ambu bag. I was there when the doctor called her time of death. I was there when she breathed her last. She was too young to die. I’ve witnessed families having to come together and make a decision to take a loved one off of life support because there was no quality of life. I’ve seen where family members don’t agree as to what to do. Pull them off of life support or let them live as a vegetable, which isn’t really living. Is it? That’s a hard decision and a very heavy weight for someone to carry. I’ve been the one to pull the breathing tube as a family says goodbye. I’ve seen the wave of grief and the anger that comes along with death. We can never fully prepare for death or tragedy, but the reality is it’s inevitable. Working in this field has definitely allowed me to see life in a bit of a different light. I can appreciate life for what it is and do my very best to live the best one I can.
Our lives are so precious, and I’m not sure everyone really understands that. Our clocks are ticking, and time is running out. Days are dragging, but years are flying by. I was just 18. Now, I’m 26 and married. Whether people realize it or not, every day we die a little, and in the blink of an eye everything we’ve ever known and worked for can crumble. It takes one second to look down at your phone while behind the wheel to hit a pedestrian walking alongside the road. It just takes one bad decision to lead you to a life of misery and regret. Everything can change in an INSTANT.
We’ve become such an opinionated, offensive, and critical country, and sometimes that makes me sad. What has our country come to? Everyone has to get in the final word. Everyone is right. Everyone has an opinion. No one has a filter. Everything is taken as an offense, and we get defensive and critical and flat out mean. It’s a vicious cycle, but if we “give time to love, time to speak, and give time to share the precious blessings in our lives” our world would be a much better place. Our country would be better for it. If we spent more time with those we love knowing deep down this is our temporary home, and we can’t keep our loved ones forever, regret would a friend of the past. If we chose kindness over hate, think of how many lives could potentially change. Sometimes we are the only smile someone sees during the course of the day. Sometimes we can be the person standing between someone having a great day to someone having the worst possible day that sends them into a spiral of depression and thoughts of suicide. People don’t realize the power that words carry and the power of kind gestures, a smile, and a hug. Words can give life or bring death. We are the ones who decide the fate words bring. We’ve become a country where possessions have multiplied but values are reduced. We’ve become connected to possessions rather than to people. There’s more to life than possessions and temporary things.
I think sometimes we need a little inspiration to remind us what we have. We need someone to remind us that life is worth living and kindness truly matters. There is goodness in everything, every trial, every tribulation, everything. We just have to look for it sometimes. We have to be reminded of the beauty that life offers, and we need to be reminded that everything can change. Change is the only constant in this life. It’s the only thing that doesn’t change. Change is here to stay. It allows our roots to grow a bit deeper. We’ve got to be reminded that as a country we are suffering. If we spent more time loving rather than hating, America could be great again. If we spent time lifting each other up instead of tearing each other down, our lives could drastically change. Possessing qualities like a child can bring one much clarity. When you think about it, children love regardless of color. They show kindness regardless of socio-economic class. Children don’t hate unless they’re taught to. Children see equality through eyes of pureness and love. They can be the ones to inspire us, but we must also choose to inspire. We can choose kindness. We can inspire change. I believe it.
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