Wednesday, August 8, 2012

HUMBLING MOMENT

I just picked up the New Yorker and read a paragraph about a man in Burma who was released from prison January 12th. He had been a literature major in college (like me), when in 1998 he was arrested for taking part in a demonstration. He'd been in prison since then.

1998 to 2012, I thought. How many years is that? Then I realized it's an easy number for me to calculate. 1998 was the year my health fell apart, the year I was forced to stop working as walking got harder and harder until I could barely leave the house. Since then I've been on an Odessey of diagnosis and recovery. Little of it has been easy.

And yet I have not been in a jail, beaten, starved, cut off from friends and family.

A humbling moment.