I want to salute a lady I met recently, Rose Wang Sun. She works as a medical assistant at a hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts. In her home country, she had a career as a nurse and, eventually, a doctor. When she's not working at the hospital, she works with herbs, she paints, and does amazing things with a sewing machine.
For the past month or longer, she's been making PPE at home - masks, caps, headbands, plastic face shields, other innovative devices - and providing them to the hospital staff at no cost to them. I asked her if she could make a few items for some of my friends working in a hospital. She had them finished and ready in less than 48 hours, after working shifts both of those days. When I went to pick them up, I expected to meet an exhausted woman. She greeted me at the front door smiling, happy, and radiant.
A long time ago, I had the good fortune of working with a Yup'ik Eskimo elder and healer. She was well known in the community. People sought her out for healing and advice around the clock. I never saw her compensated for her services. I never heard her complain or saw her turn anyone away. She was also smiling, happy and radiant. So much so that you could not be in her presence and be unaffected.
Once, I summoned the courage to ask her if she ever got burnt out after watching her engaged by ten or more people and their troubles at a community event. She smiled like a little girl and said, no, she never had. She told me that what she did didn't drain her energy, that what she gave didn't really come from her at all. She said that energy came directly from the eye of the universe and that it never runs out. I have never met a more powerful person in my life.
This lady I'm saluting today has some of that same stuff in her. Thank you to you and those like you, Rose. Without you, we'd be lost.
For the past month or longer, she's been making PPE at home - masks, caps, headbands, plastic face shields, other innovative devices - and providing them to the hospital staff at no cost to them. I asked her if she could make a few items for some of my friends working in a hospital. She had them finished and ready in less than 48 hours, after working shifts both of those days. When I went to pick them up, I expected to meet an exhausted woman. She greeted me at the front door smiling, happy, and radiant.
A long time ago, I had the good fortune of working with a Yup'ik Eskimo elder and healer. She was well known in the community. People sought her out for healing and advice around the clock. I never saw her compensated for her services. I never heard her complain or saw her turn anyone away. She was also smiling, happy and radiant. So much so that you could not be in her presence and be unaffected.
Once, I summoned the courage to ask her if she ever got burnt out after watching her engaged by ten or more people and their troubles at a community event. She smiled like a little girl and said, no, she never had. She told me that what she did didn't drain her energy, that what she gave didn't really come from her at all. She said that energy came directly from the eye of the universe and that it never runs out. I have never met a more powerful person in my life.
This lady I'm saluting today has some of that same stuff in her. Thank you to you and those like you, Rose. Without you, we'd be lost.
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