Beyond the Build

The Weekend

You Dropped Something.

A few weeks ago, I was walking down the street in St. Paul–freezing–and my mind was elsewhere. A gentleman stopped me and said, “You dropped something.” I scanned the ground to see what it might be, and realized nothing was there. That’s when he said, “You dropped your smile.” I immediately realized it was true, and was thankful for the reminder of the message of what our expressions convey to those around us and mine did that day in Minnesota.

Then last Sunday evening, I called to check in with my son, who is deep in his cardiology fellowship. He had just finished a 35-hour shift (19 more to go), and told me about a particularly challenging case. About 11 pm that evening in the ICU, he spent about an hour carefully working to get an IV into the vein of a patient’s neck, a particularly dangerous procedure due to the proximity of the carotid artery. Around 2 a.m. he went back and checked on her, when her sedatives had worn off, and the first words out of her mouth where, “Happy Valentine’s Day.” I thought, what a testament to a positive spirit and thankful nature in the midst of extreme trial. Medicine is indeed an honorable profession, as he and I have discussed.

Maybe we should all be a bit more thankful for what we have and remember to express it with a smile or a kind word. And maybe I will remember not to drop something again.

{Image Credit} 

Merrill Stewart Jr.

Merrill Stewart is Founder and CEO of The Stewart/Perry Company, a commercial building contractor based in Birmingham.