I got a pedicure today. As the nail technician was filling the bath, she tapped my foot and asked, “Okay if I take?”

I looked down in horror to see a Band-Aid I’d completely forgotten about, clinging determinedly to my second toe. I’d sliced my foot open on my own door the day before, rushing to meet a grocery delivery driver and tripping on the ridiculous, too-large folding cart I fight with each time.

“Oh god, yes, of course. I’m so sorry about that.” Carefully, she peeled off the fraying brown plastic, revealing a small but nasty gash she would have been well within her rights to refuse to touch. She held up the bandage, and without an ounce of revulsion or judgment asked if I wanted to keep it.

“No, no! Gosh, no. Thank you. Thank you so much,” I gushed, mortified that her interaction with my medical detritus was still ongoing.

She threw it away and the pedicure continued. I was glued to my phone all the while, and when I finally looked up to make sure I’d given her my polish, I saw that she’d applied a fresh bandage to my toe.

I nearly lost my breath.

I hadn’t felt it. She hadn’t asked if I wanted one, or announced that she was going to give me one. She’d just quietly, kindly attended to my still-tender wound. I’d come to her a bit bloodier and more torn up than really is appropriate for a setting where scrubs are not involved. And she’d just navigated around my hurt so gently I’d not even noticed her leaving it in better shape than she’d found it.

If that’s not a philosophy of life, I don’t know what is.