Generosity with Humor on the Side

Her typical day consists of waking up around 6:30 in the morning and letting the two dogs, Princess and Toby, out for their morning relief. Next, taking her shower and gets ready with some breakfast in there, but can't forget the sweet tea or Diet Mountain Dew. Switching a load of laundry for her son, and daughter if she's home from school, into the dryer before it's off to work by 7:45 to start her day greeting people, smiling, with her almost perfect white teeth.

Her lunch break is usually spent coming back to the house to let the dogs out and definitely to grab something to eat. Sometimes she'll run a couple of errands and just eat a snack on the way. She'll call her sister if it's her turn to get her dinner to see what she wants for that evening. She grabs another Diet Mountain Dew if she didn't grab an extra in the morning. She's going to need that extra caffeine kick later or she'll spend the evening with an atrocious headache.

The evenings vary, but they have always consisted her doing for someone else before she does what she needs to do for herself. Fixing dinner, running dinner to her disabled sister, or attending to parents when they were alive, mostly just giving them company, but also taking them to the grocery store was a weekly occurrence.

This woman is my mother, Sharon Doss. She is the most selfless person I know. She might not have done anything so spectacular in her life, like started her own business or wrote three published articles, but she has been a single-mother who didn't just raise her kids, she took care of her older family members almost as if they were other children. All along the way she tries to find the fun, the happiness, or even the humor in her everyday rituals.

Her day doesn't sound too out of the ordinary but it is hard to capture how much time she is giving to others. She is a receptionist, sometimes assistant, at a local dentistry office. She doesn't leave at the end of each workday without having the charts pulled for the next day, especially for that patient who will be in at 8:00 sharp. This is something that could be done in the morning, but it makes her more at ease knowing it is ready to go the next day. She has a lot of particulars that if they aren't in place or ready, will get her a little excited. Something I enjoy is paying attention to those particulars and poking fun at them, even though she tells me to shut up.

She loves her job. I don't think the words have ever been said, but it shows.

"Amanda," said Sharon, "do you know so and so? Her grandfather just came in and all we talked about was our girls going to Virginia Tech. His granddaughter may even be in your sorority."

"Mom," I said during one our daily conversations, "not only do I know her, we actually hang out a lot."

This is just one of the many conservations about someone she took the extra time to get to know and find a connection with. Her children are usually a top topic of choice, but even though I might not ever know the people she talks to, it is always fun for some gossip on who's who and what their family members say about them.

If she didn't love her job, I don't think she would get these types of stories. She can remember a patient's name better than most people can remember their own name. She only sees some of these people every six or 12 months.

Sharon always pays close attention to the people around her. She values the patients that come through, but her family is her number-one priority with best friends in a close race behind us. Not that I realized it until I was older, but she definitely did so much for my brother and me. Never once did she let us feel like we were weird kids for having to move four times in two years due to the divorce from her ex-husband. She always made sure we children were fine, fed, and going to school with the stuff we need and homework finished. On top of all this, she had to get to work herself and also checked up on her parents and an aunt who might has well been a third parent. It was an impressive task considering how much a divorce wears on a human being, no matter if it was an easier settlement or a harder settlement. Of course with kids, it is never an easier settlement in divorce court.

However, what was way more impressive was keeping up her humor in all this cloud of dizziness. She listens to the same radio stations as her kids do and would be up to date on the songs and the gossip she heard from the morning shows. Since we've become a little older, she has even watched some reality/comedy shows with her kids and quotes them just the way young adults nowadays do. One of her favorite TV shows, Rob and Big, is played on MTV.

"Matt (my brother), get up and put your laundry in the basket," said Sharon.

He makes up some lame excuse, probably saying he'll do after some TV show.

"Matt, DO work son," she then said, a quote the characters from Rob and Big say often. We all burst into laughter.

This is the one of the many comments she says off hand that makes us all take a break from whatever stress is going on and just smile. Or grab our sides from laughing so hard.

The main reason she is an inspiration, though, is her selfless care for others. She does a lot for others, but not in an unhealthy way well, at least most of time. Her brother and she split the nights to deliver food to their sister, who isn't capable of cooking or fixing for herself. Their dad and aunt used to do this, but we have lost them both within the last two years. Even though she misses them dearly, she knows that her sister still needs care and needs someone to sit with her like her dad and aunt used do. Sitting with someone who can barely hear because the TV turned up to its loudest setting takes lots of patience. Sharon is also a woman who doesn't normally tolerate nonsense like that, but does for her sister, because she cares for her so much.

There are many extraordinary things done by amazing people everyday; however, finding some ordinary people who are doing more than the average within their lives can be just as interesting. Caring for the people who are the most precious to her favorite task.

"It comes naturally," said Sharon. "I wouldn't change anything in the world for what I have and what I do."