The Humility Triangle

After sitting around thinking of things to talk about while passing our time away in the enclosed closet of a work space, we moved on to hefty subjects; moving beyond flatulent noises and 'your mama' jokes. One of my co-workers asked with genuine warmth, “So how’s the baby doing?”

I’m asked this simple straightforward question on a daily basis, which I suppose is a good thing, (it’s nice to know that your co-workers are still thinking of your troubles). Anyhow, I gave my quick synopsis of what was going on (taking milk, weight, off the ventilator) and how that in general she is doing quite fine and we hope to have our daughter home soon. When our other partner, who was working overtime and not knowing of my daughter’s hospitalization, wedged his way into the conversation.

“I’m sorry, but do you mind my asking, what’s going on with your daughter? Why is she in the hospital?”

So, I proceed to give him a run down of my daughter’s preemie birth, how she has been in the hospital for the past couple months, and how she is doing now. I guess it was the end of the week and both of them could see the tiredness living on my face, so maybe I was trying to justify the half-sleep daze I was in, so I added how I was a little worn out from having to go after work to the hospital and then coming into work for the past couple days with only a minimal amount of sleep in-between.

Then my overtime partner, a big bruiser, boxer of a man put his head down and sighed.

“You’ve just humbled me.”

“What?” I replied a little startled by the statement. “Why?” I wasn’t expecting that statement, not from him, not from anyone really. I just wanted a little understanding from the guys if I put my head back and closed my eyes for ten minutes.

“Well, I have a 9 month old and it seems like we are taking her to the hospital all the time to be checked out. We’re always going to the Emergency room because we’re afraid of this or that and I have been grumbling about my daughter always being sick. She did have to have surgery once, but it was nothing like being in the hospital for months. I’m completely humbled. I feel like a jerk for complaining so much.”

I smiled a smile of reassurance to him, trying to give some comfort. It was nice to know that my situation could humble a person. I felt good inside to be the tool of humility for someone else.

Then my other co-worker, the one who initiated the conversation to start, piped up again, “Did you hear about so and so (another co-worker that I have only briefly met)?”

The boxer and me both responded, “No.”

“Oh… well him and his wife had their baby last week. They had a preemie too, but she didn’t make it. I guess she came too early and she was too small.”

We sat in silence. For a moment I was glad to be in a darkened room that was a little bigger than a hall closet, because I didn’t want my two partners to see me with pursed lips, swallowing hard to hold back water. I was flooded with visions of my daughter’s birth, thinking when I first saw her that I might not ever have the opportunity to know her; thinking that our first meeting might be our last.

In the previous weeks I have complained. Whining about little nuances that came with my daughter’s hospitalization. Having to spend so much time there and not getting proper sleep. About the nursing staff, when they rubbed me the wrong way. About any little thing at all really, I just like complaining.

In a small-darkened room, with two brawny brawlers, we all sat looking through the darkness past each other, caught up in our own thoughts. I was humbled.