She was all down and weak and couldn’t have fought her way through. The first semester of her finals, she wasn’t in school until it was the exam week because she couldn’t have carried the session over or even try to defer her admission. It was a tough time for her.
During her stay at home, something strange happened to her, and she couldn’t wait to share the news with us all.
Before the sickness overtook her completely, there was one of her lecturers who was fond of her. He was her project supervisor. She had just finished a class, and the supervisor noticed her movement, then called the attention of her classmates who later rushed her to a nearby hospital. From there, she was referred to another hospital because it was getting out of hands.
The day after she was admitted to the hospital, her parents came for her, and she travelled home where she got proper treatment.
One day, she was in bed, trying to get better when her phone rang. It was a strange line calling. “Who could it be?” she thought. She hesitated for a while, and then picked up. “Hello, how are you doing?” the voice at the other end of the call said. It was the Head of her Department (HOD).
She was shocked because according to hearsays, she wasn’t too good of a person to show so much compassion towards one of her many students. So, how come she called?
While she was still thinking of a lot of things, the voice on the other end of the call continued. “How are you feeling now? I learnt you’re ill. By God’s grace, you will walk back to this school and back into this department with complete healing in the name of the Lord”, she started. The next five minutes of the call were prayers upon prayers upon prayers.
After that day, she called every two days to check on her and told her to show up at her office immediately she resumed back to school.
When finally, she was strong enough to go back to school, she showed up at the HOD’s office, and the first thing she was asked was, “how do you go about the tests and assignments you missed? Those are your continuous assessments, and you know how important they are to your final scores for the semester. So, would you like to take the tests now, or you’ll let your exams be marked over 100 instead of 60?”
That was the most compassionate thing to say at that point to someone that was close to graduating the best but had given up on her dream because of the sickness that took away all her time and attention. It was very compassionate of the HOD to think of such a solution at that point in time, only if she knew the extent of the effect of what she did.
After she decided to write only exams of 100%, her HOD wrote letters to other departments heads and course coordinators so that they would consider the special student that was in need of help.
What more can be compassionate than that for a student who had given up hope of being able to write exams talk more of dreaming of still having a first-class, nonetheless.
Actually, it doesn’t cost a thing to be compassionate. For some people, it is an innate trait, but for many people, it is acquired. You can learn by practising compassion towards people who genuinely deserve it. Also, to animals too because they also have lives and families.
This is my entry to InLeo prompt for today. Want the details? Check here