January 10: "I Have Just Said," Surgery Center, Thank You

Mary Oliver on thankfulness . . . 

I Have Just Said

by:  Mary Oliver

I have just said

     something

ridiculous to you

     and in response,

your glorious laughter.

     These are the days

the sun

     is swimming back

to the east

     and the light on the water

gleams

     as never, it seems, before.

I can't remember

     every spring,

I can't remember

     everything--

so many years!

     Are the morning kisses

the sweetest

     or the evenings

or the inbetweens?

     All I know

is that "thank you" should appear

     somewhere.

So, just in case

     I can't find

the perfect place--

     "Thank you, thank you."

Bringing joy into someone's world is a gift.  Laughter is a gift.  The laughter of someone you love is a miracle.

That's what Mary Oliver is writing about.  Those moments of joy and laughter that glide by without a picture or painting or poem to commemorate them.  I'm sure that any disciple of this blog can think of moments like this, when you don't even realize how happy you really are until a long time has passed.

Earlier in my life, I used to work in the healthcare industry.  (Yes, it is an industry, more concerned about profits than patients, but that's the subject of another blog post.)  One of the jobs that I had for close to 20 years was in the business office of an outpatient surgery center.  I worked with some of my best friends at this facility.  Every day, we labored hard and laughed hard.  Sometimes, we cried hard, as well, because that's what friends do.  It was a truly blessed time in my life, but, of course, I didn't realize it until it was over.

Tonight, I'm going to have dinner with several of my friends from the surgery center.  We will laugh and reminisce.  Talk and gossip a little.  We will do what best friends who haven't seen each other for a long time try to do--recapture what has been lost forever.  That blessed time before the surgery center closed and we all went our separate ways.

I'm sure we will tell some of the old surgery center stories and ask about Dr. So-and-So and Patient Such-and-Such.  Maybe we'll share pictures of our kids, some of whom have gotten married since our last reunion.  And, at the end of the dinner, we will all experience that final parting again--leaving the restaurant, not knowing when, or if, we will see each other again.

In case Saint Marty forgets to say it to his friends tonight:  "Thank you, thank you for that blessed time in my life."