Empathy
“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
Henri Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey
I saw this article on the Internet a week, or so ago and it really touched my heart. Perhaps you saw it too. It was an article about former President George H.W. Bush, our country’s 41st President. In the article, the former President had shaved his head in support of a 2-year old boy fighting leukemia.
The President had noticed that many of the men assigned to his Secret Service security detail had shaved their heads in support of a member of the team, whose son, Patrick, was undergoing treatment for leukemia…and had started to lose his hair.
So…the 89-year old former President shaved his head too.
The President and former First Lady, Barbara Bush also donated a sizable sum to the charitable fund set up to help with the little boy’s mounting medical bills.
The Bush’s know firsthand the pain of being a parent of a child fighting leukemia, because they lost their second child, Robin, to leukemia in 1953. Over the years, that Bush’s have worked tirelessly in the fight against this dreaded disease. They have helped to raise money to fight leukemia and other cancers. For their efforts, the Anderson Cancer Center in Houston has opened the Robin Bush Child and Adolescent Clinic in 2004.
I’ll end with this quote by another former President, Teddy Roosevelt, “No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”
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