My Friend Eric Albertson wrote a moving story about his mothers recent illness. It touched my heart and I thought it would be valuable to share it with you. This is from his newsletter. This is a professional that applies his heart to his business and his life, and worthy person to put turn your attention to.
Thank you Eric…
In this issue: Love is the answer
by Eric Albertson, www.succeedinginbusiness.com
I wanted to give you an update on my mom, and her
recovery from stomach surgery.
No apologies needed if you want to pass on this. So
many of you have written and called, I would feel incomplete if I didn’t give
you an update.
As some of you may recall, my 78-year old mother was
sped to the hospital by neighbors about 30 days ago with acute stomach pains.
The MRI showed what appeared to be several large tumors. I was on a business
trip but came home immediately. The doctor thought Mom probably had advanced
stomach cancer and, given the size of the apparent tumor, was likely to not be
with us long.
She was lucky, she had several large ulcers. After
losing 1/3 of her stomach and a little of this and that, she is on the mend.
I also shared with you in that earlier article, that
she has been an inspiration to me and everyone who knows her. She grew up in
what we would today call poverty, married, and at 56 was left with
next-to-nothing when my father died. Within a few short years she earned and
saved enough from selling residential real estate to get a home to live in
without debt and had enough savings to have a secure, if modest retirement. She
retired at 65. She still saves money on her meager Social Security payment.
She considered getting married again for about 2-3
minutes. Did I say that she is very independent?
Life had not been easy for mom. The stories she tells
of her growing up make you want to cry. None of us should have any doubt about
just how lucky we are to be alive at this time in history. Despite all that, through
it all, she was almost always positive, giving and very loving to everyone in
her world. I am grateful to be her son. I have something to give because she
had something to give.
Mom had never been sick beyond the occasional cold,
had not been in a hospital and has never had a prescription. Stomach surgery
was bad enough. Recovery has been a bear.
This woman at 78, could out-walk most 40-year-olds
and had the stamina of a plow horse. She fully expected that she would bounce
out of bed and be back to normal once released from the hospital.
To her great frustration, life is not so
accommodating. She was released from the hospital two weeks after the surgery.
We were delighted that she could come home to my house and stay with me, my
wife Caroline, our two boys (Alexander 14 and Zachary 8), our 4 lb. scruffy
poodle named Teddy and our six chickens (Gladys, Hanna, Natalie, Henrietta,
ZaZa, and Whoopee — a.k.a. "the girls").
Caroline has been a total saint. I try to make 90
percent of mom’s meals and do all of the dishes. Still, Caroline has her
mother-in-law in her house and our 14-year-old is bunking with our 8-year-old,
all without a complaint. I can only pray that I would be half as well behaved
were the tables turned.
Each day mom gets a little better. The first few days
all she could do was sit up to eat a little and walk down the hallway once or
twice when I pushed her. She hated the slow speed of her recovery. It was made
all the worse because she had nothing to compare it to, given the fact that she
has never really suffered any ailments in her life; lucky her.
At times she slipped into depression because of her
slow recovery. So far, she always pops out of it after a good night’s sleep.
Today she walks up and down the hall every hour and then sits or lies down to
recover from the 60-foot walk.
Gifts come in the most surprising packages. As you
can tell, Mom is not thinking this slow recovery is a gift to anyone. She
thinks she is a burden to me and my family and she wishes she could go home.
Despite all that, her slow recovery is a huge gift. One she is just beginning
to see.
The gift is that we all have had more time with her
than we would normally have gotten in many months; we don’t have to chase her
down to say hi. The kids have volunteered to provide various forms of
entertainment, from magic shows by Zachary (really good show if you are willing
to close your eyes at strategic parts of the act), to micro-sized ice cream
deserts by Chef Alexander. The favorite is just a quick hello.
The real gift is that Mom knows in new ways how much
we love her and vice-versa. Had she not fallen ill, she would never had slowed
down enough for us to have a chance to show her the full scope of our love for
her when it wasn’t convenient, easy or common. Our relationship will never be
the same.
The other gift is that we all know anew how precious
life is in new and important ways. Mom now has more empathy for her aging
friends who didn’t win the genetic lottery that she evidently did, and that has
enabled her to feel so good and healthy for so long. She now has empathy for
the tens of millions who have had to endure seemingly endless experiences with
doctors, hospitals and insurance company fights.
I probably won’t write to you again about mom. It was
a delight that so many of you expressed such amazing love and compassion for
someone you have never met; it was pure inspiration to me about the quality and
character of the people who read our newsletter. I am honored to be in your
company.
All of us have ups and downs. The lesson for me in
all this is that there is a gift and an opportunity in every turn of events. It
is often not what we wanted, but it is what we have. Making the most of it and
finding the hidden gift is the magic of a life well-lived.
Cheers,
Eric Albertson
Portland OR
May 17, 2007
PS: Don’t forget, no matter
what you might buy from us at www.succeedinginbusiness.com,
your purchase is guaranteed with a lifetime 100% money back guarantee.
END
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