The Teacher and Her Husband

One night after my surgery I was unable to sleep in my hospital bed at three o’clock in the morning. Suddenly, the lights burst on and a man was wheeled in to the bed next to mine. Through a drawn curtain I heard his wife’s rather loud voice discussing her husband’s imminent liver transplant.
Suddenly, his wife realized how loud she was, and apologized from the other side of the curtains. She said she was a teacher and was used to speaking loudly before a group. I said I wasn’t sleeping anyway, that I had just gone through the same operation, and encouraged them to ask me any questions they wished. We talked for a couple of hours, and I provided them with (what I hoped were) comforting facts and emotional support.
Months later, my wife and I were in a large auditorium attending a lecture by the director of the UCLA liver transplant department. Suddenly an arm wrapped around me. When I turned, I saw the arm belonged to the woman with whom I’d spoken that night months earlier. As tears ran down her face, she told me that I had no idea how important my kindness to her and her husband had been. She remembered my name and recounted everything that I had told them. She said they visited the room in which we met, told the patients about me, and shared their transplant experiences as a way of repaying some of the comfort they had received from me.