By Tola
All you have to these days is tune in to any news station to realise what a sorry state the human condition is.

Especially these international news stations, the bad news is relentless. They just keep bringing it on…natural disasters, man’s inhumanity against man, the latest epidemic… it just doesn’t stop.

Even locally the news isn’t better. If it’s the not the lynching of four innocent undergrads, it’s the collapse of another building, the adulation of another government thief, the abortion of another national dream. For greater impact abstain from watching TV for a while, then you’ll realise just how bad things really are.

Personally after a while it just becomes too much and I tune off. Too much of anything, good or bad, bitter or sweet, is bad. I think the news networks kind of realise this as well; for every marathon stretch of bad news they give you few inspirational stories designed to lift the spirit. Bless God for these ones… it helps to remind one of what’s still good and pure about us.

One such story grabbed my heart and brought tears to my eyes… more than that it made me question my existence and the much, or little; that I’m doing to impact the people I come into contact with everyday.

The story was about woman who had been struck with cancer I think about eight years ago. While she was she was undergoing treatment she learnt to play the harp as a way of coping with the tedium and pain that comes with the treatment of that dreadful disease. It must have provided a soothing means of escape.

Eight years after her first brush it was discovered that the cancer had come back. And with such stoic grace she embarks on another round of chemotherapy. This time though she does not go to the hospital unarmed. Having found it a blissful and soothing means of escape, this woman who had been blighted by a terminal illness not once, but twice,and whose life at this very moment is hanging in the balance, takes along her harp so that she can share some of that joy and peace with fellow cancer patients.

Yup… on her appointment days she would take up a position in the waiting room and play the harp ever so sweetly while she waited her turn. Then when a ‘chair’ is finally available, she get hooked up to the equipment and keep right on playing throughout her chemo session to the delight of all the other patients in the room receiving treatment.

She said initially. The head nurse of some other such official wasn’t too keen on having her play to the other patients not knowing how some of them might react to waking up to the sound of harps playing (the reality being too close to our imaginings of heaven)but she kept at it till it was obvious that the patients were all the better for it. Now she’s seen as an angel of sorts.

Wow! Such generosity of spirit! In her own pain, facing her own mortality the comfort and peace of mind of others is still paramount in her mind. Such a simple gesture yet such profound joy for both the giver and the recipient. What do I have to gripe about? Bills? A nation that defies all attempts at proper governance? The maddening traffic? In the face of this woman’s situation and the cross she bears so gracefully I’ll say they’re superficial. At least, I am alive and whole,and can still be a part of the solution.

This woman’s story humbled me and reminds me to always see my cup as more than half full. My personal prayer is that I can still be a blessing and impact people’s lives positively regardless of my personal situation.