Compassion is Everything

The smallest things you do can change someone's life. This is a true story of one of my experiences. Names have been changed.

One summer when I was seventeen years old, I attended a church camp where I shared a cabin with a bunch of other girls. Little did I know the lesson I would learn.

I soon got to know all of the girls I shared my room with. Some of them were friendly, and others were not. It wasn’t that we were enemies; we just didn’t have much in common. These were the type of girls who like to talk liked to flirt with boys and dress scandalously; I am the type of person content with meaningful conversations and suspenseful novels. Just as can happen in any group of people, cliques were formed. It was not that I didn’t want to be these girls’ friend, but they just made it very clear that they didn’t want me around. I made a choice from the beginning not to be mean to them back, and I decided I would be kind to them regardless of how they treated me.

Several days passed at the camp, I spent most of my time with my girl friends. But one afternoon I wasn’t feeling well, so while others were outside playing sports, I came into my cabin for a break. I lay down on the bunk, my head hit the pillow and I sighed, expecting to spend the next hour in solitude. It was then that from across the room, I heard a voice. It was “Erica”, one of the girls who I had had such trouble getting along with.

I gave her a tired “Hello”, and soon we were talking nonchalantly. She asked me why I wasn’t outside playing sports; I told her I hadn’t been feeling well. “I haven’t been feeling well either…” She sighed, and then became quiet for a few moments. I wasn’t sure how to respond, but asked if I could do anything for her and if she thought she might be okay soon.

It was then that she began sharing something with me that she had told no one else in the cabin. The night before, she had attempted suicide by overdosing on pills. Fortunately, the pills were not enough to seriously hurt her, and camp leaders were able to help her. She proceeded to tell me about her depression, her problems at home, and her abusive boyfriend. I sat there and listened. “I don’t understand!” She said to me. “How come you are so nice to me when we aren’t nice to you back? My friends would never listen to me about this stuff!”

Her words from that day stick in my mind so well. What if I hadn’t treated her as a friend? Would she have had someone to talk to? That week there were many times where I had my doubts in what I was doing. But it was on that day that I learned compassion can mean everything to a person’s life.