The same morning
Outside the hospital, someone is late for work. A delivery van has stopped across a bike lane. A child screams in protest against wearing a hat. The bus opens its doors, closes them, and moves on.
Upstairs, someone wants a glass of water.
It is the same morning. From the street, though, the hospital windows give little away. They just go on reflecting the sky, and we just pass beneath them with our plans and obligations.
We generally encounter a city on our way somewhere. We judge the sidewalk pavement by whether we trip over it, the bus by whether it shows up, the traffic by whether it flows, the coffee shop by whether there is a free table. We have purposes, and the city either helps us or obstructs us.
Then something happens. A sudden fall, a worsening illness, a gradual loss of strength. The route grows shorter. Our geography shrinks. First the walk across town disappears, then the trip to the shop, then the stairs.
Eventually we are waiting for someone else to arrive.
People we almost know
A city is partly made of people we almost know.
The man who sells us groceries at the store. The woman whose dog insists on inspecting the same tree. The barista who begins preparing our coffee order before we have ordered it. We might find this very presumptuous if he got it wrong. Since he gets our order right, we have a different word, we call it: belonging.
These small meetings have a way of disappearing when we get too weak to go there anymore. We stop going out, and the world we helped to create around us, through our repetitions and daily rhythms, simply goes on without us. Someone else sits at our table now. But the barista may wonder where we are.
A visiting family member or friend can bring some of that world into the room. She can say that the bakery has changed hands. That there is scaffolding around the church now. That the dog has finally lost interest in the tree.
Such news may seem a poor gift to bring to a bedside. But a person can be seriously ill and still have strong opinions about that scaffolding around the church.
The difficulty is remembering this when we enter a hospital room. We have probably prepared ourselves a little, or a lot, to meet a suffering person. We arrive with a suitably lowered voice and discover that our friend or family member wants to know why we are speaking as though someone has already died.
There is relief in knowing they are still alive.
This afternoon has not happened before
At a bedside, it is easy to believe we know what we are seeing.
The person is weak. We can see that. Their eyes are closed. We know they are tired. We begin painting a picture of the situation and soon the picture feels complete to us.
Then they open one eye and ask whether we have had lunch today.
Something has clearly escaped our description.
I think this is one of the most difficult parts of caring for someone who is sick: to remain interested in a person after their circumstances have become familiar to us. We have heard the diagnosis, the limitations, the routine. We have heard the prognosis. We may have known them for forty years or for ninety years. Still, this particular afternoon has not happened before.
Perhaps the music they loved yesterday irritates them today. Perhaps they would prefer the curtain closed. Perhaps our efforts to comfort them is becoming a nuisance.
Attention requires a willingness to find out.
When someone can no longer answer us, the uncertainty grows bigger. We can speak to them, explain what we are doing, leave pauses. We may receive little signs of what reaches them. That is difficult for most of us who depend on some response to feel that we have been useful.
There is still the afternoon
When recovery is no longer possible, a visit to their bedside can feel strangely without a clear purpose.
We cannot report any improvement. We cannot devise a plan that will return our friend or family member to the street below. We sit down, and the things we usually rely on seem to have been left outside the door.
But there is still the afternoon.
It may contain pain, impatience, sleep, a request we cannot understand. We may spend much of it adjusting a pillow and fail to get the pillow right. There may be a few minutes of conversation, or none.
Sometimes a visit ends awkwardly. We leave tired, uncertain whether we should have stayed longer or have gone away sooner.
Coming back may be the most useful answer we can manage.
The bedside has a geography
Of course, coming back requires a car, a bus, maybe someone to collect the children.
The bedside has a geography. It extends to the parking garage, the late shift, the pharmacy, the spare couch where someone can sleep. A hospital chair that allows someone to rest for an hour can make a considerable difference to the night.
These are ordinary arrangements, easily overlooked by people who do not need them yet.
So are the people who keep them working. A nurse with too many patients has little time to discover that someone would rather hear about the weather than discuss their symptoms again. A family member living far away cannot turn their affection into a shorter trip to visit them.
A city has decisions to make about all of this. Where care is available. How people reach it. Whether the people providing it have enough help and rest. Our own willingness to visit grows easier or harder within these arrangements which we all share.
A room for surprise
St. Augustine imagined two cities formed by two loves.
I may enter a hospital sincerely wanting to help, while also hoping to leave reassured that I have helped. The person in the bed may have other ideas or concerns. They may even be concerned about me.
There is something gently unsettling in that reversal. I came equipped to give, but now I am being asked to receive.
In the Gospel account of the last judgment, those who cared for the sick are surprised to learn whom they had served. They had visited someone. The meaning of the visit exceeded what they understood.
I need to leave some room for that surprise.
Plenty to tell
Outside, the public bus is making another round. The bakery is closing its doors. A child has thrown a hat on the sidewalk.
Someone arrives upstairs and draws a chair closer toward the bed. They have come straight from work. For a moment neither knows what to say.
Then the person in the bed asks about the day.
It has been a quite ordinary day, but there is plenty to tell.
Pax et Bonum,
C.W. Höjer