« The road ahead is long and hard | HomePage | If we can't withdraw into to our carefree, luxurious life styles anymore, you guys may find yourselves in trouble »
03/28/2008
You are here on life's continuum
There is an unnamed rage rising up inside me. This place contains too many memories. Why do the good seem so small and the bad still burn?
>
So many years ago ... I am a stranger now. Disposable people like me do their job and are forgotten, we build and move on. The future owes us nothing but at times like this the past rises up and shakes an angry fist.
>
From 1976 to 1977 I worked here and yet I made a wrong turn on our way. I cursed whatever it is that fades the memory so easily. Gina is beside me and she is sick. She has moved back with us and has no health insurance. Her husband's meager jobs have never warranted medical coverage. They too are disposable.
>
Gina has been very sick for almost a week. On Tuesday she felt better but relapsed that night.
>
A fat, black woman walks into the waiting room with 3 tiny kids. They have the most ridiculous hairdos. I secretly delight in how they fit the stereo-type. One of her kids probably has a cold and she's here for America's version of free health care, the Emergency Room. Suddenly, we are equals in our need. The great, lowest, common denominator has brought us together.
>
I look around and see reasons to dislike the others waiting here, their looks, their age, the fact that some DO have health care. I wonder why I am like this.
>
They take Gina back to an examining room and ask me to wait until she is fully registered. My thoughts are in an uneasy place. A man wearing green hospital garb walks up to me from an unexpected direction and says my name. He pronounces it correctly. I assume he is a doctor delivering some news but he is Scott, an RN, he was in Cub Scouts with my son.
>
We catch up briefly and he tells me that he has drawn blood. He points in the direction of Gina's exam room and I follow. I feel better knowing that Scott is somehow involved in Gina's care.
>
The past has come back again, harkening me to the time I was an assistant Cub Scout leader. I never felt the part, I liked camping and hiking but rules and merit badges were antithetic to my nature. I felt like I wore a costume rather than a uniform. I wasn't a leader of boys but I provided something the others didn't and the boys liked me.
>
Gina is sick as a dog. The doctor suspects pneumonia and that thought has also crossed my mind. Oddly, no one has mentioned money. The doctor is reassuring and kind, I am grateful.
>
It's so easy to give up, to go down in a free fall of hate or disease. The world is full of pitfalls, traps and old wounds, but sometimes, goodness prevails. Gina is recovering, pumped full of pain killers and antibiotics. Her Kidneys are infected.
>
The small gestures of life, sometimes forgotten, making the effort to be good in spite of how our lower nature nags and cajoles, these have inestimable healing power. Gene
09:45 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Post a comment