A day of setbacks reveals something greater

It is raining spectacularly outside.

On this day, I’ve been delayed six hours in departing for Denver. I’ve spent most of the day alternately sitting on the tarmac and waiting at LaGuardia (which I often refer to as the Beirut of East Coast airports), keen to get to one of the sunniest places in the United States to visit some of my staff there to discuss future projects, remind them that their work is much appreciated and that, lest they forget what I look like, I’m still their boss.

An unexpected and wonderful thing happened on the way to the airport.

Getting from Staten Island, where I live, to LaGuardia requires a hired car. You don’t really want to drive there yourself if you can avoid it; when I asked my brother if he’d come along for the ride and drive my car back, he looked at me as if I’d asked for a pint of blood.

So I reserved a pickup to get me to the airport. (Trust me, it’s far less posh than it sounds.)

My driver, Kamel, was the talkative type; as I’m full-on Irish, I indulged him. Algerian by birth, he came to the U.S. as a kid and earnestly expressed how he adores the U.S. and its endless opportunities for he who hustles. A bit into our conversation he mentioned how he and his wife, a Brooklynite by way of Canada, regularly open their home to foster special-needs children. “Regular” foster kids, he explained, won’t do. They desire — and readily accept — the tougher cases. This, he told me, is how they give something back to the country they love.

The bigger the physical challenge, the better; Kamel and his wife had recently been instructed in how to change a tracheal tube, for a child currently living with them.

Growing more animated (and personal), Kamel related how one of the kids they fostered for years had to “eat” via a feeding tube in his side. He joyously recalled the day when doctors cleared the boy to taste real food for the first time — watermelon, grapes and boiled white rice. The child’s blissful experience of eating the rice, Kamel said, would be for us like excitedly sitting down to a five-star meal and posting the photos on Facebook.

Moments like that, he said, are the most rewarding of all. “You savor it,” he said to me, equating that exquisite sense of wonder with the satisfaction of being part of something greater than yourself. “That’s what it gives you. You savor your life.”

While my personal altruism pales in comparison, I understood what he meant — and the invaluable perspective such endeavors grant you. Years back, I’d been given the gift of getting involved with an organization that I deeply believe in, Give Kids the World. It’s a storybook-themed village that hosts seriously and mostly terminally ill children for a week while they’re enjoying Orlando’s theme parks, all free of charge, and I’ll always be thankful for that.

Soon, Claims Editor-in-Chief Patricia Harman, NU Associate Editor Danielle Ling and I will head down two days early to the Workers’ Compensation Institute’s annual Educational Conference at the World Center Marriott in Orlando to participate in WCI’s yearly volunteer day at the Give Kids the World Village. It’s a long, sweaty, remarkably rewarding day of spreading mulch, pulling weeds, painting fences, serving meals and myriad other tasks that draws hundreds of volunteers, and I love being part of it.

I wish everyone I know could experience what it feels like to be a part of it, in their own small way.

Readers of this column know I mention Give Kids the World Village several times a year, and part of the reason I do it is to spread the message about how charitable work enriches your life in a way that other things can’t. I’ve met a lot of very successful people in the P&C industry, and those who are the happiest are the ones who’ve found a merciful cause that they believe in, to which they can devote themselves.

Life gets busy, and it was heartening to be reminded that there’s something bigger out there than you that makes your own struggles seem a whole lot smaller, and makes you savor the good things that much more.

My suggestion: If you haven’t already done so, perhaps it’s time to give yourself “the gift” and find it.

I guarantee that once you do, you’ll never be embarrassed to talk too much about it.

Shawn Moynihan is Editor-in-Chief of National Underwriter Property & Casualty magazine. He can be reached at smoynihan@alm.com.

The opinions expressed here are the author’s own.

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