THE NARRATIVE ARC

When I Was Most Alone, Little Acts of Kindness Saved Me

Finding strength at the pharmacy

Photo by Zhen Yao on Unsplash

It’s time for your meds.

Five words that, just like that, took a hold of my life. I wear this name, ill, everywhere. It’s been seven years. Let me sit with that. Seven years.

Every four months takes me to a particular Chinese lady, waiting with pen and paper in hand.

I sit next to the door waiting. Your name? Check. Your date of birth? Check.

I rest my arm on the familiar wood. As the pharmacist calls names, I start to realize this is much more than a visit to the doctor. This is me, accepting my diagnosis. Letting that part of my life stay and thrive.

But I didn’t realize yet that there was someone else who would always be there too.

Have a good day!

She handed me the pill bottles and checked off my information. Same woman, every time. She smiled compassionately and returned to the office to count more meds.

I take more than pill bottles from those monthly encounters. Every visit is now allowing some part of me to live. Every pill bottle gives me one more reason to come back.

As I hit the sheets, pills scattered on the bedroom floor, dreams of this pharmacist come back. It started to feel like something that would never truly go away. It gave me such a deep sense of peace to know she would always be right there in that room, counting pills.

Sounds counterintuitive, but it gave me strength. Taking these meds for so long has… well, made me feel alone. But this loneliness only ever needed a confidant for it to drift away.

Sure, I have friends. But do they go to bed every night saying, 10, 20, 50?

Do they count their pills because the world gave them no other choice? Do they feel the way I do?

Those thoughts used to give me no rest. It was almost like I had no one but the man in the mirror to count on.

But as pharmacy visits accumulated, I started to see a part of the world I had been blind to. I started to see the compassion. The brotherhood. The love.

For such a long time, I saw none of that. But one day, as the pharmacist gave me a motherly smile and reached for the black pen I knew so well… all of the pain just went away.

That lady never fails to smile. To say have a nice day.

And she means it, every time.

With her, I felt completely at ease. I was just getting used to this new, scary life, but here was one person who I knew would stay through it all.

I was too young to feel thankful, but I felt the significance of that day. No one ever made me feel that way.

I had the next appointment already set up on my calendar, and I waited with bated breath. Never had I ever felt so understood.

All those doctors, those therapists, they only saw illness in me. But this lady? She saw human.

Here are your medications. You’ll be coming here for pickup every four months.

I should have hated that. Been tired of it all. Instead, I was grateful. I was thankful for having a smiling face I could see regularly. In a way, I felt less alone.

I’ve been thinking about that first visit. Such a small thing, but it holds so much significance.

Maybe all we need is someone who stays. In times in our lives when we feel truly alone, stuck, and like there’s no escaping our situation, there will always be one person who just sticks with us through it all.

For me, it was a Chinese lady with big glasses.

Rohan, it’s time for your meds.

Six words I no longer dread. Because I know who is waiting. I know who is standing for hours without sitting, holding pill bottles and pen and paper in the other hand.

And I know that part of me will never leave. I will always have that lady at the pharmacy, and with her there, I will never be alone.