Coffeehouse .2 Post

I have countless times where I have learned something and had a big “ah ha!” moment but I’d say the one that impacted me the most was when I sat next to someone in a waiting room of a hospital. This is not much of an educational experience but it was more like a life lesson. For some context: I have gone with my father, and my two brothers to the emergency room because my younger brother was having problems with his asthma. I always liked being in that waiting area, I don’t know why but I did; fast forward a little bit, a boy around my age sat down a chair away from me. I saw that he was shaking. At the time, it was cold so thought he was shivering because he was cold and didn’t think much of it until after awhile he kept shaking.

I felt like something was wrong. I figured I should talk to him, I thought maybe he was having a panic attack and needed to be calm. I am not a very social person, still not but, at the time I believed maybe he just needed to hear that he was okay, that everything will be okay. As soon as I built up courage to begin a conversation, he was called into the emergency room. I felt a great negative feeling come up, I believe, I felt guilt. I felt bad that I didn’t tell him he was going to be okay. I’m not saying it was my fault he was shaking but I felt like, although I may not know what he’s going through, maybe I could’ve distracted him temporarily from a conflict he was going through. I came to firmly realize that everyone goes through something on the daily. People have rough days but we can’t see that and should be mindful of others; I should realize that I’m not the only on on this earth, there are others. I know this is like an obvious thing to know but this really cut deep, and till this day he pops up into my head and I still hope/wish he is doing okay.