Feathers

Photograph copyright Michelle Garza / mgarzaphotography.com. Used by Permission.

Another personal blog.

Coming up on 24 hours in the hospital.  

You catch yourself dozing a little, something beeps.

You empty bedpans,you assure the patient this is a pleasure and a joy, not  duty.  And that's the truth.  These things come 'round.

We talk of love and the past.  We assure one another it's been worth it.  This is not the end yet.  I am not sure we don't sometimes wish it were, as though the shadow of more suffering is hanging over us.  Maybe that's true.

You read Jane Austen aloud.  Nurses come in and change the IV, and you tease them: "You're like a character out of Jane Austen," and they laugh and ask if that's a good thing, and we say "Yes, of course," though of course it isn't always.

At six on a bright warm day I've been here for 12 hours.  Mom is sleeping, and I need to stretch my legs.  I head for a little bar I know near the hospital, sit on a patio that feels like a New York penthouse.  One of mom's doctors is drinking a beer with an attractive woman.  He studiously ignores me, and I sit with my back to him to avoid awkwardness.  Wodehouse is on my Kindle, and I read a few chapters and sip a short vodka tonic.  A longhaired black dog wanders in and out of the bar, comes over and puts his head in my lap and with a little whimper wins a few strokes on his sleek head.  Part of the pack, man.

I needed the air, the walk, the time to think.  But I'm anxious to be back.

A nurse comments to me as I walk through the halls, "There are so many people that visit her."  It's a bit of a joke that we're opening a deli in the little sitting room off of mom's room: there's food everywhere.  

And the people keep coming.  It's a blessing and a curse, because they interrupt badly-needed naps, and they say prayers, and they keep coming and coming.  One of them tells me that it's "Such a witness," and I bite my lip to keep from saying, "Fuck being a witness: it's a better world.  It's a life worth living.  It's love and not neglect."  If it makes other people want to live well, like mom has lived, that's wonderful.

I do wonder if, when I'm in mom's position, I will wish more people came by.  On the whole, perhaps not.  But I will wish my family were cared for like this.  Perhaps they will be: but it depends on me.

I tell the inquiring nurse, we live in the world we create.   Mom gave herself for others and lives in that world now.  Whatever else you can say about Christianity (and it's a deeply flawed and wounded system, intellectually bankrupt and often spiritually confused), it is a community, and Paul was inspired at least when he wrote, "Then abide these three: faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love.

Me, though.  I'm not thinking very clearly, from lack of sleep.  I just want the world's feathers to close around us all.