Heartbreaking: My Journey from Bitch to Better Person

Self-knowledge only goes so far, it’s what you do with it that counts

Photo by Andrey Zvyagintsev on Unsplash

I never used to worry about becoming a better person; I thought I was nice enough already. I grew up Catholic, attended church every Sunday, went to confession. I never spent a New York minute on the shady side of a principal’s office or a police station. I knew I wasn’t perfect (Who is?) but, I carried the certainty that I was “a good-hearted person” or, at least “good enough.” That all changed the day I realized I wasn’t as nice as I thought I was. This is the story of how I learned that a good person isn’t a finished product. A good person is constantly under construction.

A dark epiphany

Lying in my hospital room, just hours after hip replacement surgery, I was suffering from a migraine. The nurses could not administer my regular medication without my doctor’s okay, and it was the middle of the night. I could plan on at least eight more hours of pain that not even a morphine drip had put a dent in. I had undergone a major operation, I was in pain, and all I wanted to do was sleep.

Suddenly, amid loud and considerable commotion, an emergency case was wheeled in. The patient was a very old woman with Alzheimer’s disease who had fallen and broken her…