Published on: April 15, 2017

“When we stop making the world up in our heads and start meeting people where they are, we meet… ourselves.”

Sunshine Mugrabi is a dear, longtime friend of Pallium India. A few years ago, she visited us at Trivandrum as a volunteer and accompanied our home visit teams. In one of those visits, she met a man with a huge tumor on his neck. As the doctor and he conversed, Sunshine was struck by his lack of interest in hearing about his medication.

“I found myself getting frustrated with the man. He didn’t want to hear anything about medicine or anything else the doctor had to say. All he wanted to know was when he would be allowed to eat seeds again.” The doctor explained that he would never be able to eat his favourite food, because it can’t get past the tumor.

Everything came full circle when, a few years after her visit to India, Sunshine had an accident. She could not move her arms or legs, and was in excruciating pain. The doctors had no idea what was wrong with her. She was debilitated and dependent on her husband.

Sunshine describes her biggest problem at the time – she wanted to be able to eat more interesting food. “I wasn’t acting the way someone in a terrible situation should act. I was thinking of my stomach rather than the kinds of things dying people were supposed to think about.”

Sunshine recovered, in her words, “miraculously”. But that experience was an eye-opener for her. And now she shares that experience with us. Please read her blog Tiny Things.