there are no little fingers

Put simply: there are NO little fingers.

Sometimes it’s the small things that make the biggest impact. I am reminded of this three weeks ago at 5:20 in the morning.

It is the small uneven ledge on the sidewalk that catches the thin lip of my shoe sole and sends me spilling across cement and grass.  It is the small end of my crutch handle that lands on the little finger of my right hand causing ricocheting pain that brings tears to my eyes.  It is not little when it is throbs and aches.  I assure you. Suddenly it looms larger than life.

I travel on two planes nursing a swelling hand and little finger.  Hard to do when point A to B necessitates using BOTH hands to get there. {For those of you who I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting, I have one leg and use a pair of nifty forearm crutches to walk with}

My finger demands to be noticed the whole way, turning colors I normally love to see on canvas, but not my hand.   I begin to realize how completely oblivious I have been to its importance and how such a small part of me could make such a BIG difference.  And it isn’t just true in my body. What about in the world around me?

What would happen if the pinkies, the small overlooked parts of my life were fractured?  Broken, injured, missing?  Or simply unnoticed and unappreciated in their precision and functionality?  Have I taken time to be grateful for the under-appreciated but vital parts of my life.  Truly there are no “little” fingers.

There are no small roles, only small mindsets.

I land and travel the maze of emergency room corridors, just to be told: see a specialist.  One that specializes in the small things like pinkies that can become big issues.  A few states later, I do.

I find out my fractured little finger is sporting three breaks, not one.  I can’t see them even when pointed out to me in painstaking detail.  A miniscule break I couldn’t even SEE in an overlooked place I never noticed that would dislodge sleep and schedule for the next three weeks.  It seems absurd.

I never noticed how I typed, carried, balanced, sorted, WROTE and did a sundry of other things all with this one small appendage.  Needless to say I am much more aware of my pinkies, one of which is still splinted a world away now back in Africa. The healing is coming and now comes the time of regaining motion, aka making my finger do what it screams not to.

All of these pinky problems got me thinking: are there things perhaps we have overlooked in this busy season and the holiday rush that need remembering?  Any “pinky people” in our paths that could use some encouraging, recognizing their key importance with a well-placed thank you or a surprise plate of Christmas cookies? In a throw-away society, one of the most sustainable practices we could ever cultivate is gratitude.

Sometimes we don’t realize how important a part of our lives is until it is injured or missing.  Let’s take time to see all the amazing gifts all around us we have to be thankful for this holiday season. We don’t have to wait until something is no longer there to appreciate its value.

Living on purpose

~Michele

Pssssst: Speaking of making differences…

My non-profit organization, Nema International, is now fully online.  Stop over to see what we are up to and how you can get involved!