Watering the Seeds of Compassion

I know I've already written a post about compassion but I feel so strongly about it that I'm going to write another one. In this one, I am going to bare my soul about my experience with compassion and the time in my life when it was triggered. I can remember the actual moment when my compassion seed  received it's first dose of water and fertilizer. Joan Halifax, in her beautiful video on compassion describes how we're all born with compassion, but that the seed needs to be nourished.

For me, I was a young girl of 5 or 6. I was playing outside with a friend and we got into an argument. She hit me in the head with a stick that had a nail in it and I had to go to the emergency department for stitches. When I was getting the stitches, I had a dark cloth over my head so I couldn't see anything. I was very afraid and I had someone, who I assume was a nurse, hold my hand. Her presence gave me a profound sense of peace and calm. I never saw what she looked like, I only know the feeling that I had. I believe it was in that moment that the seed of compassion was watered by that angel.  I think that's why I wanted to become a nurse, as I wanted to be that person that could feel compassion and journey with people when they were at their most vulnerable.

In my previous post, I talked about how important
compassion is in the Alzheimer's world and how to practice self-compassion.  I believe that compassion is equally, maybe even more important than high marks for getting into programs that train health care professionals. I think that compassion needs to be part of the core and required curriculum for all  people working in the field. I would love to believe that all health care professionals are compassionate, but unfortunately that's just not the case. Imagine a world where all people who were touched by Alzheimer's disease or dementia experienced only compassion and love. What difference would that make? What stories of compassion can you share?