My wife has been in the hospital twice in the past couple of weeks to have a kidney stone removed. The first time around wasn’t “a charm.” The surgeon could not retrieve the stone, and a second operation was scheduled for a week later. This time around the stone was removed. However, she has been required to stay a few days longer due to a complication.
Jean is located in the far side of the hospital room next to
the window. As I walked into the room for the first time before the second
surgery, I noticed a pile of sheets in the first bed, and thought nothing about
it. However, it wasn’t long before I discovered the pile of sheets was more
than a pile of sheets. For you see, as the result of my wife’s nurse having
moved her IV stand in order to change the drip bag, I momentarily noticed the
head and shoulders of a small, elderly African-American woman beneath a bundle
of sheets in the next bed.
She was a pitiful sight. Her eyes were closed and she lay
there in a fetal position. And each time I walked in and out of Jean’s room, it
seemed the little lady lay in the exact same spot, in the exact same position,
and wore the exact same grimace on her face. And for all the hours I sat next
to my wife in that room, the precious woman was not only bereft of visitors,
but I never witnessed a nurse or nurse’s aide speak to her, or for that matter
do anything for her.
Pt. 2
Once I asked Jean whether the elderly lady was being properly
attended to, and she assured me that she had seen the medical team do the things
that medical teams do, and that the frail old woman was completely dependent
upon them, as she was immobile and non-verbal.
I felt a great amount of empathy for “Josephine,” especially
since she seemed to have no one in the world, that she had experienced a great
deal of suffering, and she was scheduled to be moved to the hospice floor of
the hospital.
As I sat next to my wife’s bed yesterday, I experienced what
seemed to be a prompting to do something I wasn’t all that inclined to do. It
seemed to be one of those “If you build it, they will come” sort of whispers in
my own “spiritual cornfield.”
“When you walk out of the room today, stop by Josephine’s bed,
lean over her, touch her shoulder and quietly tell her,
‘Josephine, may God help, bless and encourage you.’”
For anyone who knows me, they are aware that I am a public
speaker, counselor, mentor, singer, and former university professor, and that I
absolutely love to impact those whom God sets in my pathway. And yet, while I
have spoken to hundreds, and counseled and mentored couples and individuals, it
has always been in my own environment and on my terms.
However, only a few of my close family members and friends are
aware that I display a bit of reticence and introvertism when it comes to
certain environments, and the lack of my own terms.
This was one of those times.
Pt. 3
I would love to be able to tell you I did the exact same thing
which I felt prompted to do at that moment, that I kissed my wife ‘goodbye,’
that I walked halfway out of the room, that I bent over the little lady’s bed,
that I touched her shoulder, that I whispered the words, “Josephine, may God
bless, help and encourage you.”
…But I didn’t.
When I called my wife this morning, she informed me that
Josephine had been transferred to the hospice floor of the hospital.
Perhaps I allowed formality and conventionality to deter me
from my inclination to reach out to the little lady under that big pile of
sheets. Perhaps my inclination to touch her and speak encouraging words in her
ear was more about my own personal persuasion than a spiritual one. Of course,
either way the foregoing actions and words could have only encouraged the dear
lady, and what thinking, caring person would have criticized me for reaching
out to her?
Of course, I wish I were given the grace of a “do over,” but
like all momentary opportunities to bless, help and encourage another person,
there simply are no do overs. I can only hope that a team member, visitor or
patient in the little lady’s new environment will do and say what I failed to
do and say.
God give me the wherewithal to learn from my momentary
omissions, allow me to be sensitive to my own sensitivities, and help me to
listen to that still small voice in the spiritual cornfield of my life.
Afterward
As I neared the conclusion of this blog last night, I wrote
the words,
“I can only hope that a team member, visitor or patient in the
little lady’s new environment will do and say what I failed to do and say.”
When I arrived at the hospital today, my wife’s final day in
D7 319, I sat down in the easy chair next to her bed and told her I had just
written a blog related to my “if you build it, they will come” inclination to
bend over Josephine’s bed and whisper a little encouragement on my way out the
last time I visited, and how I neglected to do so.
My wife has been a nurse for the past quarter of a century,
and she has served a multitude of people in a multitude of nursing roles;
hospital, hospice, nursing home, elementary school, agency nurse, etc.
When I told her about my inclination and my blog, she made me
aware that, well, I’ll allow her to put it in her own words.
“I spoke to Josephine’s husband. He said she had been very
much like this for ten years, and that she resided in a nursing home before her
latest hospital visit.
“I told ‘Frank’ that although I realized his wife wasn’t
communicative, I knew she was aware of my presence and my words, and how that I
had made a practice of speaking to her when I passed her bed on the way to the
bathroom. I would often say, ‘God bless you’ or ‘Stay encouraged, my friend.’
“And a couple of nights ago, I woke up about 3am, and I just
felt inclined to bring up ‘Amazing Grace,’ a piece by Aretha Franklin, on my
phone, and I played it for Josephine. Frank seemed pleased, and he said his
wife was a believer.”
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