Thought 07OCT2008

"WHATEVER YOU NEED"
I was working as a consultant in a beer company, helping the president and senior vice-presidents formulate and implement their new strategic vision. It was an enormous challenge. At the same time, my mother was in the final stages of cancer.

I worked during the day and drove 40 miles home to be with her every night. It was tiring and stressful, but it was what I wanted to do. My commitment was to continue to do excellent consulting during the day, even though my evenings were very hard. I didn't want to bother the president with my situation, yet I felt someone at the company needed to know what was going on. So I told the vice-president of Human Resources, asking him not to share the information with anyone. A few days later, the president called me into his office. I figured he wanted to talk to me about one of the many issues we were working on. When I entered he asked me to sit down. He faced me from across his large desk, looked me in the eyes and said, "I hear your mother is very ill."

I was totally caught by surprise and burst into tears. He just looked at me, let my crying subside, and then gently said a sentence I will never forget. "Whatever you need." That was it. His understanding and his willingness to both let me be in my pain and to offer me everything were qualities of compassion that I carry with me to this day.
Martin Rutte - extracted from 'Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work', Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Maida Rogerson, Martin Rutte & Tim Clauss, Health Communications, Inc., 1996.

Character is what you are in the dark - American Proverb