You must wake up with sorrow.
Feeling better than I have in weeks because steroid inhalers work. Only able to get the steroid inhaler since I’m able to afford the out-of-pocket cost of said, because despite the absolute medical necessity of being able to breathe my insurance company has so far twice denied coverage of the medication.
Appealed — a process that could take up to fourteen business days in addition to the many hours of phone calls and emails — and in the meantime reflected on how relative economic privilege (being able to pay $250 at short notice) translated into an immediate and meaningful difference in my quality of life.
There have been times in my life when $250 at short notice would not have been feasible. There are many, many, many people for whom that sum right now still isn’t.
What do we owe to others? A question that changes shape and scope but that I find myself considering each day, each week, each year.
How do you pay fortune forward? A question that assumes, of course, that one must.
Attribution
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.— from Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye