DAISY

The daily challenge in my line of work is to constantly bring a sense of professionalism, of integrity in both deed and word to the process of building a for-profit company.  If you know me, it is a daunting task to merely keep myself grounded, much less my little corner of a large and diverse company culture. But my disciplines prompt me to attempt the challenge even with meager resources.  This past week turned out to be a role reversal. I spent the week with a charming and dedicated couple who taught me a great deal about being thankful.

Their story began in Amarillo, Texas in 1999 where their son and daughter-in-law had just delivered the greatest gift, a first grandchild, a granddaughter. They stayed and beamed with pride as only we grandparents can do, cuddled their new love, then with regret made their way home to Sonoma California. A few short days later their son called with news that he was ill and hospitalized. So they rushed back to Amarillo where an 8 week illness grew progressively worse. They care-flighted their son to Seattle for a bone marrow transplant that never happened. He died those few weeks later at the age of 33 with an infant  daughter and wife and now grieving parents.

For most of us the story would end there. We would spend the intervening years adjusting to our new reality ;adjusting to a world that had lost a lot of the brightness and joy that we had anticipated. After a time we would have attempted to stow the burden of regret into the closet we never open and never clean out and never use again. For my part it might have made me quieter and more cynical about the world and those in it.

But while still in the deepest throes of their grief, the parents and the daughter-in-law sat down and determined that there had to be a better way. What resulted in those anguished moments was a foundation designed to simply say, ‘Thank you’ to the women and men in the nurse’s uniforms who made the final weeks of their son’s and the family’s lives bearable. Their goal was to communicate this thankfulness to as many as possible. In their minds if they could create a moment for 100 nurses to realize they help everyday they put the uniform on, then they would consider it a success. In this moment the DAISY Foundation was born.

They tell the story much better than I. Their composure in the telling of the story only highlights the profound gratitude that they communicate to these nurses. It is a simple story and simple mission, say ‘Thank you’ to as many as they can, in person if possible. It was humbling to me to sit and listen and be treated like royalty when I had nothing to do with their story or their mission. But it also caused me to reflect on my life and the instances where my response could have been more gracious and had greater impact.

You see, the real mission is to keep their son’s legacy alive. By telling the story of his death, they create a moment of joy and thus bringing to life his memory. My response might be to say, ‘How much joy could this little moment bring? After all the price was our son, the price was too high.’ Then I remember that over 40,000 nurses have been honored in the years since. These gatherings in the hospitals are a big event; the nurses have stories told of their dedication, their compassion, their strength. Tears are flowing in humbleness over being honored in this way. There have also been 300,000 nominees who shared this moment of joy. Since its inception over 1500 hospitals have signed up to participate. Can you calculate the growing ocean of joy? Was the loss of the son worth it? I don’t know, but the memory of the son is worthwhile.

This week taught me the spiritual truth that the greatest moments, the worthwhile moments emerge from the greatest tragedies. The teaching was to take my deepest moments of loss and determine to create smaller moments of joy. This is not simply a grieving couple finding a way to cope. This is an inspiring story of turning tragedy into joy and joy into further dedication. And it is a story that reminded me that we each have opportunities to turn tragedy into joy. As the current spiritual hymn says, this is how we overcome.

 

Godspeed to my newest heroes, Mark and Bonnie Barnes. All I can think to say is what you have taught me, ‘Thank you.’

Don