“Today is worth two tomorrows.” – Benjamin Franklin

Two Tomorrows

“I had a senior moment,” Diane said as she carefully lifted her deeply bruised right arm. “Luckily, the back of my shower is slanted. It eased my fall a little bit.  Still, I just really hurt.”

“Today is worth two tomorrows,” Benjamin Franklin once said. And, as I sat visiting with Diane Miller, I could hear Mr. Franklin’s imagined voice utter these very words. Yet, I was unable to imagine what Diane was about to teach as a perfect follow-on to his words.

“Do you remember when we were standing on the road in front of my land last year?” Diane asked with a faraway look in her eyes.

She and her sister own a well-wooded piece of land a few miles from where we were now sitting. On a bright day last year, we were standing just in front of it as she took the time to verbally paint a detailed description of the reasons she loved it.

“I love this land because it rises gently away from the road. It makes it so when a person looks out and away to the west, she has a beautiful view of the surrounding farms that are carved out from the subtropical forest. I treasure the trees that have taken hundreds of years to grow here. Did you know that there are wild blackberries sprinkled all through, below the trees? It’s a place of refuge for deer and birds, and especially for me.”

If we weren’t standing in front of that land, I could have vividly imagined the entire scene she had painted. But, perhaps most importantly, I could feel the love she cradled in her breast for the place.

“Do you know what I remember most about that day we were standing there?” She asked.

There was no need to answer, because I knew she was going to tell me.

“I remember the empathy you showed me,” she said. “Empathy makes a larger impact than most people understand. And, it goes a long way to make a lasting impression; to ease pain.”

As she finished speaking, while looking earnestly toward me, I watched as she trembled and grimaced in pain. So much so that she immediately let out a little laugh as the pain subsided slightly.

“At least I can still laugh, because the pain reminds me of my latest ‘senior moment.’” She explained while moving to stand. “I need to go home now.”

She stood. Then she began to walk slowly toward the door behind her.  She thought of opening the door with an associated gesture, but the pain in her dominant arm reminded her of what she wasn’t up to doing at the moment.

So, I reached for the door and opened it to ease her way.

“I’d shake your hand,” she smiled. “But you understand why I can’t.”

She turned her head to lead her body down the gentle ramp toward the sidewalk beside Main Street.

“Today is worth two tomorrows,” Benjamin Franklin said to me again.

I would have never known that today’s small gesture of empathy would be able to continue to brighten the day of a friend, with accumulated pain, more than one year later. Who would have known that empathy, once shown, would have such power over tomorrow?

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