The View From Here

Looking up at the clear night sky on a walk a few weeks ago, I saw a bright streak across the sky. My scientist brain knew it was a meteor burning up in the atmosphere, but my poet brain was the first to react. “A shooting star,” I told myself.

And before I knew it, I was making a wish.

In those fleeting moments you realize what’s most important. Tell a person they’ve got three wishes, and they’ll perform mental yoga coming up with clever ways to wish for more money, more friends, more time, or even more wishes. But when forced to come up with a wish in the blink that star-trail takes to traverse the sky, there’s no thought involved. Instinct takes over. For me it was the image of my own family. I didn’t know what I was wishing for them – perhaps health, joy, peace, or purpose. I just knew that they were the one thing that was important enough to leap to the forefront of my poet brain in that briefest of moments. I imagine the same would be true for many of us. It’s the people in our lives that define us and give our lives purpose.

To me, the greatest benefit of having a thriving, modern medical center in Hays that services patients from across the region isn’t the beautiful building or even the expensive, life-saving equipment; it’s the people. HaysMed associates are your family. We are your neighbors and friends. The housekeeper that maintains your room or the food service associate that brings your meal might attend your church. The aide that answers your call light or the nurse that addresses your questions is someone you’ll see while shopping. You might see the clinic receptionist or radiology tech who performs your testing while out to dinner. The greatest benefit is that the people with whom you interact while in our care are, themselves, someone’s spouse, mother, brother, son, sister, daughter, father, neighbor, or friend.

That’s a whole lot of words to express the thoughts that happened in one second on a walk on one clear summer night in Hays. But as long as we’re making wishes, I wish each of you health and happiness. I wish you a shooting star moment of clarity and that we all take that moment and turn it into action.