“Before you decide how to treat someone, image you were them.” – Justin Cohen
I came across that quote yesterday while browsing the web and it stuck in my head. A simple concept but perhaps a difficult thing to actually execute.
The rest of my weekend was partially spent focused on my father who is very close to the end of his run with us as he tiredly struggles through the last part of a 14 year battle with Parkinsons.
Watching someone as they prepare to pass-on is an interesting process. And watching the way their surviving friends and family deal with the situation can be equally fascinating. My younger sister seems most hit by this anticipated event. She is crushed and mourning even before Dad has taken his last breath. She will have a major hole in her life that she is already feeling, and her pain seems…deeper than mine. I will miss my Dad, no question. But he and my sister had a much closer relationship than with any of the other children. A closeness that I never knew and therefore a sense of loss I will not know.
And truth be told, I cannot help but slip into judgment of her on occasion as she sits nervously in the chair by the hospital bed emotional and cranky and irritable. How can I relate to my sister now, when all these years she had the golden spoon handed to her and only her. We are now so different.
Then last night I was reading a book to my daughter and cuddling her before she fell asleep. I lay on the floor beside her filled with the very special love she and I have…and it hit me. This is not about me understanding my sister.
It’s about me understanding a daughter.
“Before you decide how to treat someone, image you were them.”
Thank you Justin.
B
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