A young woman was on the train, minding her own business, when a stranger approached her, doused her in gasoline and lit her on fire. She was on a train I must have ridden a hundred times when I was her age and on the same public transportation my own daughter takes twice a day, five days a week.
When I rode that train, I worked in an OR in a hospital just west of downtown Chicago. I’d get up at 4 a.m., jump on the first train heading into the Loop and transfer to the Blue Line and ride to its final stop. Like my daughter, I had to be at work by 7 a.m., leaving 8-12 hours later, taking one bus and transferring twice on the subway before making it home. I worried about running into someone hostile, but I never worried about being set on fire.
The hospital I worked at was, and still is, known for having one of the best burn units in the Midwest, and every so often, I’d have to run up there to draw a blood gas. Somehow I felt the pain before I smelled it. As soon as the hall doors opened, you’d get hit with the scent of burnt hair and flesh, and all I could think was that cliché was true: “Only fatal burns are painless.”
Like that young girl who was recently burned on the train, I met another girl on that burn unit, many years ago … a patient who was about the same age. It took all my power not to look at her and cry. Her nose? Gone … and most of her face had chunks of flesh so badly burned it looked as if she were wearing a mask. Half her hair was sticking out of one side of her head, and when she called me over, I couldn’t turn away.
She could barely speak, but she pointed for me to move closer and whispered in my ear, “You’re so pretty.” I had on a mask, a net over my hair, and I realized she only thought that because I was healthy … I wasn’t her.
Then she said, “Be grateful every time you look in the mirror. You have everything and you don’t even know it.”
I look around my home and I wonder how come I am here while others are outside on the street, or like the parents of that girl who was just burned, glued to their daughter’s bedside. The older I get, the more I realize our lives can turn on a dime.
So this holiday season, instead of worrying about whether the mashed potatoes are lumpy, maybe we could make the world a better place by donating toys to kids who are stuck in the hospital over the holidays, buying a hot meal for someone living out on the street, or volunteering our time at a local food pantry.
No one wants to have to rely on others to feed them or keep them alive, but sometimes that’s where life ends up, and thanks to the generosity and action of strangers, you could be the one who helps someone else survive another day.
So stop whining, stop complaining about how other people are “taking” things from you and instead look at how much you have. If you can read this, you have your sight, and chances are you’re relatively healthy, you have a warm home and you’re safe.
Maybe we should change the narrative to, “I’m grateful I can help others” and then just do it. Bring food to the food pantry, give money to that guy outside the Walgreens, say thank you to that cashier or server.
Support the organizations who are fighting to stop the opening of our wetlands to building and our public lands to drilling that will only pollute our drinking water and wipe out species who can’t speak for themselves.
Support small businesses in your town or online, even if they can’t give you that big-box discount. Remember, they have bills to pay and families to support too.
Volunteer at a hospital or a nursing home. See if you can start a story hour there.
Offer to go grocery shopping for someone in need. A neighbor who’s been through a loss or someone you know who doesn’t own a car.
Unfortunately, the list is large, so you shouldn’t have a problem finding something that speaks to you.
Today, you have everything you need, but in five minutes … or five years, you may have much less, and you could be the one telling someone else they “have everything and don’t even know it.”
We all need to wake up and realize most of us have a pretty great life, and it’s time we find a way to help others have one too.
Germaine Caprio is an Oak Park resident.
