A Story that Touched My Heart and Deepened My Gratitude – My 4-Year-Old Guru
This morning, I found a newsletter in my email that included an article called My 4-Year-Old Guru, written by David Romanelli. I was quickly sucked into the story. (It has a happy ending.)
David tells how on April 30, 2020, at 5:30 pm, their pediatrician called to tell them that their 3-year-old daughter, Cooper, had acute leukemia, and they needed to rush her to the Phoenix Children’s Hospital to start treatment right away. He shares how he struggled to hold himself together, relying upon his years of yoga and meditation. This was the beginning of the hardest year of their lives.
David goes on to say that the hardest part of the past year was the weekly visits to the clinic for chemotherapy infusions. They would sit in the waiting room with the other parents and kids, waiting to get called. The first step was to insert a needle in his little daughter’s port in her chest so they could draw her blood and see if there were enough healthy cells before giving her the next round of chemotherapy.
This routine became a part of their life, week after week; waiting for the results, waiting to get the chemo, and watching their daughter suffer the side-effects.
They learned that a huge part of healing is the story you tell yourself, so they never used the word cancer or chemotherapy. Instead, they told 3-year-old Cooper that she was getting superpowers in her tubes. And she believed it.
Little Cooper is now in remission!! Yay!!
I’m not sharing this story to make you cry like I did. I’m sharing it because David’s comments at the end were such a good reminder for me. He said,
“Our family is much better off now than ever before. Our levels of gratitude and joy are off the charts. But it took something like this to wake us up. To crystalize our gratitude.”
What an inspiring story of post-traumatic growth! What an inspiring story to remind us to appreciate what we take for granted!! Join me for a moment of deep gratitude by closing your eyes and focusing on the good things in your life.
