I was talking with a friend today.
She was saying how hard it is for us to reach out for help sometimes.

We think we can handle the tough situations of life all by ourselves.  Then we hit those circumstances where it is simply "too much," and we have to ask for help.

It's funny.  Our conversation made me think about the pudding.

Just a couple of days before my mother died, she had reached a point where she could no longer eat solid food.   We needed to get some food to have on hand that was soft, like pudding.  

I didn't really know how close my mom was to her death yet, but something in me said "Stay here Kevin.  Ask for help."

I called our Hospice volunteer, and asked if she could go to the grocery store and get my mom some of those little individual servings of pudding.  She was so nice.  It took no time at all before she had delivered it to us.

The fact is, my mom's condition continued to worsen, and I think my mom may have had only a taste of the pudding.    But what it meant to me, to us, to have someone to turn to, was immeasurable.

It wasn't until just now, that I thought back to that incident with the sudden need for pudding.    As I reflect back on that gesture of help, I realize that it is worth me writing about it.  I just want to remember how meaningful it was. 

I want to honor the "small gifts" we receive and give, for in the big picture, some are not small at all.  Sometimes they are huge.

The gift was not the pudding.  The gift was the fact that someone cared enough to be there for us.   It was a gift that will never ever be forgotten.

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