The Tiniest of Things

For all of our friends and families connected to Ukraine and Russia.

It was March 7th. I woke up before my alarm went off. I didn’t move at all, just opened my eyes to the dark. Except for a small sliver of light coming from under the door to the hallway, the room was black. And for a hotel room, it was surprisingly, almost eerily, quiet. I reached my arm over toward the clock that I had faced away from me the night before and turned it back around. The numbers were a subdued red, but they were glowing. I had electricity, which meant the cord coming from the USB port to my phone had done its job. I would be able to text my family. I could read the news. I pulled the blanket up closer to my shoulders as I shivered. I wasn’t cold; my hotel room had plenty of heat. I shivered, thinking of all the Ukrainian families without any of these things. I had a bed. A pillow. Heat. Electricity. A means to make contact. I could turn on the light. I could take a shower, put on clean clothes, and grab a cup of coffee before I jumped in my car to head to work. It was a normal day, except that I couldn’t help but notice the tiniest comforts of my free world. Any worries about my safety in this big city paled in comparison to the stories from Ukraine I had watched on the news the night before.

Two years ago, the World Health Organization confirmed that we had a global pandemic. It launched our world into a new way of living. We all started appreciating so many things we might have previously taken for granted. The grocery stores were out of many products… but you could go there. Children had to stay home from school and do online learning… but they had access to school and connection to their friends.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, I have been drawn to the stories, the hardships, the sheer horror of what can happen to a family: a mom who can’t keep her children warm, or fed; without electricity, they can’t communicate; there is no sliver of light coming from under a door; they wake up in hopes of living another day.

When Covid entered our lives, I began to journal. I am not good at journaling, but I began to list my gratitudes each night. My gratitudes during Covid sounded like:

• My daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter got on a flight out of Nicaragua, and are now living with me. I get to hug Avery every day and watch her go from crawling to walking.
• Before visiting my new grandson, I self-quarantined for a week, took a Covid test, and when I received the “all clear,” made a 3-hour car trip without interacting with anyone to be safe to hold him.
• We did a Zoom call with all my siblings across the US to check in on each other. The grocery stores were rationing toilet paper purchases, and we compared how much each of us had stocked.

My gratitudes during Covid were statements of thankfulness, no doubt. I was appreciating the little things. But in the last 10 days, that list has dramatically changed. My gratitudes are now the tiniest of things. As I laid in that hotel bed on that morning, I checked every tiny detail to add to my gratitude list. I’m grateful to see the glow of an alarm clock, to feel a pillow under my head, to have a hospital to go to if I need one. Unlike Covid, I didn’t need to have lost things to appreciate them, no matter how tiny.

Last week, I brought together a group of top-level leaders. We were sharing ways to continue to keep our people motivated and inspired during yet another challenging time. As leaders, these times will not stop… it will just be something different next time. I have learned through Signature, and through Covid, that we need to know how people are feeling.

Charlie Mackesy’s book, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, was a gift to me from Dr. Kara Mohr, one of our faculty members. In it, the little boy looks into his reflection in a pond and says, “Isn’t it odd. We can only see our outsides, but nearly everything happens on the inside.”

As leaders―as humans―we are called upon to remember that what we see of others is just their reflections in the pond. We see so much bravery in so many people: doctors and nurses dealing with Covid patients; and now, Ukrainians defending their country, at all costs. But we can’t stop at seeing that. To help our people, we need to get to what is happening on their inside. We need to ask, and then be prepared to listen with our heart.

When we feel helpless to do anything of substance, we don’t have to have big answers or big moves to be of help. More often than not, listening and loving is one big step. Sometimes it’s the offering of the seemingly tiniest of things that can make a difference.