I have just started attending a new Al-Anon meeting. I have been looking for new meetings since some of the meetings I have loved are large meetings. My voice has lost strength so I was getting more and more requests to speak louder and less ability to comply. Since I have been attending some of my meetings for 20 years it is fun and wonderful to meet new people.
About six weeks ago I attended a small meeting in the evening midweek. At my second time at this meeting I was beginning to get sick. I mentioned that I had been feeling worse and worse as the progressed. At the end of the meeting one of the women told me to help myself to some of the fresh veggies she had grown and brought to the meeting to share. I grabbed some cucumbers and as she put them in a bag for me she smiled and lovingly said to me “Don’t worry George we will get you feeling better.” I ate some of the cucumbers on the way home skin and all.
It turned out that got very, very sick with a powerful flu like disease. In time I was so sick I went to the emergency room feeling that at my 81 years that severe a case of the flu was life threatening to me.
When I finally got better I was still sick sense I was so weak physically. I was home living for several weeks. Lasr night I finally felt good enough to go to the meeting again. I told the group how the remark my friend had made about how the love of the group and the promise that the group was going to going to see me through my illness and back to feeling good as she gave me my fresh vegetable had stayed with me while I was sick. The veggies and her spontaneous assurance that the love of the group was going to bring back my health was like a cheerful light house reminding me of goodness in the world for me.
There was also something important for me to say. Eating the veggies had focused me on eating and living in a healthier way. Those fresh veggies illustrated for me that I needed to contribute to my own health by eating in a healthy way and exercising consistently.
George Caywood 