Thank you for your encouragement

Even while fighting for his health, columnist, and novelist, has many reminders of why he, and we, should be grateful

Sitting in a hospital waiting room on Thursday morning, waiting to be noticed and acknowledged as one does in such places, I found myself taking note of what was going on around me.

I always try to do that, no matter where I am, because I like to think it keeps me in touch with the ebb and flow of human activities in the space I’m occupying.

This time, though, I was very much aware of what I was looking at, and of the people coming and going through the various doors in the neighbouring hallway beyond the glass screen separating them from me.

I’ve been spending large amounts of time on medical affairs in the past few weeks, and I’ve grown very familiar with Kelowna General Hospital, among other places.

I’ve been in laboratories, doctors’ offices, consulting rooms, clinics, X-ray departments and a plethora of other locations, and because of that I have become acutely aware of how grateful we all ought to be for the calibre and skills of the people who look after us.

This is the season of Thanksgiving, and I have no hesitation in saying how thankful I am for the legion of medical staff whose hands have been selflessly offered in my support recently.

One of the facts of life facing anyone who deals with the public in any capacity is that it’s always much easier to condemn than to praise.

When people are angry or upset, their human reaction is to vent . . . to get the gripe of the moment off their chest while the displeasure is still hot and the angry words are still fluent.

It is far, far more difficult to sit down and write a calm, concise letter of thanks, appreciation, or even satisfaction, because then we have to stop and think about exactly what we want to say. Because of that, the gurus at CBC, back in the 1970s, used to say that a single letter of support or praise cancelled out a hundred squawks of outrage.

Mind you, back then there was no such thing as political correctness around to muddy every fresh stream within reach.

This Thanksgiving, we had something very unusual happen where I live.

Usually, we all have an influx of family, children and grandchildren, that descends on our little condo community for the celebrations, but this year, for the first time in more than a decade, all the kids had other plans, and so my wife and I had a wonderful, potluck Thanksgiving dinner with three neighbouring couples.

I proposed the Thanksgiving toast, and I waxed lyrical, talking about how all of us have a need in our lives for gratitude — both to show it and to receive it. And I gave reasons and examples.

I doubt if everything I said there was original; pieces of it undoubtedly came to me from others, but when I moved on to talk about our neighbours, and about the enjoyment and the uncountable pleasures we have known since moving here to Kelowna 21 years ago, I was more than sincere, for I meant every word.

My gratitude, for once, overwhelmed my natural urgings to keep my message short and succinct.

Which brings me back to the point I wanted to make in writing this piece: I don’t think we — and by that I mean all of us, including you — ever take time to thank the medical staff in any and all of the dozens of places where we deal with the personnel of our Interior Health organization.

We ignore them, mostly; take them for granted. We can (and do) get mad as hell at the institution itself — at Interior Health and its policies and problems — but the people we meet in person, sometimes on a daily or a weekly basis, deserve nothing but our respect and heartfelt appreciation.

Our neighbours to the south live in a militaristic society — everything revolves around their Armed Forces — and every time you switch on TV and see someone interacting with a representative of those Forces, they always say “Thank you for your service.”

We all need to do that here, and much more often, with our front-line medical staff.

Unfortunately for me, my medical misadventures have resulted in a situation in which, for a time at least, I will be hanging up my pen and writing no more of these little columns for a while.

I have enjoyed the exercise tremendously, mainly because I didn’t think, at the start, that I could sustain it.

My novels range from 150,000 to 250,000 words. I didn’t think I could say anything noteworthy in 800 words, once a week.

I am grateful to you, my regular readers, for your support and encouragement over the last two years and, like MacArthur to Bataan, I shall return.

Jack Whyte is a Kelowna author of 15 best-selling novels. Email jack@jackwhyte.com or read more at jackwhyte.com.