It's nice being not-alone

Sometimes life is long and wearisome, and in the midst, it's easy to get trapped in those thoughts. Perhaps because of this, I am thankful for those who walk beside me, hastening me on wards, grasping towards the same glory-- Christ. I am thankful for those who race before me, marking pitfalls, calling back encouragement, showing me the path that is best. I am thankful for He who ran first, told me the goal, levels the way, and leads me unto life as all nearby wastes away.

Here is the gentle way, difficult way, good way. "Walk in it, and find rest for you souls."

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105

I tried the hardest I've ever tried with 105. She was my age, and I wanted her to get better. Some patients I feel bland towards, no matter how much I try to connect with them, but not 105. From the minute I walked into her room and saw my own nerdy fandom posters on her hospital room walls, I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted her to get better, and go home, and mend all the torn pieces that come with a suicide attempt. I hoped this would be the dark time of her life, and that she would awake with fresh perspective and a thrill to live.

She had crazy strawberry blond curls.

Why do I connect with the people I do? In the end, it may simply be that I can identify with them...their interests, their feelings, their age, their backgrounds, etc. It sounds so simple minded, that like a baby I like those like me. But I do. Perhaps that's why 105 felt so devastating. I watched her for months, neuro storming, sweating, vital signs readings in all the wrong places, breathing jagged. I watched her wake up a little, attempt to speak, and then begin falling backwards into the world that exists between open eyes and the hurting mind. I watched her children trail in to giggle around her bed, I watched her boyfriend stand nervously in the hall wringing his hands. I saw as she turned from peaceful into restless. She would thrash in bed, and sweat through her sheets up to 2 times a shift. She started to cry and recoil at touch. She ground her teeth at any noise. And she stopped trying to speak.

Never have I seen anyone look so like they were being pulled under against their own will, being tortured by healing. Her entire look was like a scream. Eventually, rehab stopped. We began to give morphine, muscle relaxants, anything to quiet her body and mind. Her family did not calm her. Her children did not bring her rest. No music, no television, no poems, or positioning or environmental changes brought her peace.  When we gently touched her to clean her, she would bend and twist into a mangled shape, press shut her eyes, and scream open her mouth to a horrific grimace and plea. Her pain was in a place we could not touch, and in a realm we could not see. It hurt to even be in her room, to watch her helpless family try to talk to her as if everything would be fine one day.

Two weeks after leaving the hospital, 105 died alone. Her obituary is taped up in the break room, with details about an unfamiliar vibrant stranger I've never met. I find myself turning my chair away from it and the bitter taste it leaves on my heart. In the end, I did not know her more than her months as a broken body. Shoving down bites of lunch, I approvingly think how good it was that she had finally found a measure of peace, and then turn on HGTV to drown out my whispered doubts. I don't know if I'm telling myself the truth, but I don't think too closely. I don't know if I could bear it.  There is little escape from the shadow she left in her passing.

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Lloyd the Eternal

In nursing school, we learned about wholeness as a person.  We called it "shalom" and wrote hasty papers about the way that this new concept would change our practice forever. But a dry essay is nothing like the  man crying before me, confessing that he’d rather be dead than spend more years leeching off of others. Somehow we deceive ourselves into thinking that the elderly or disabled are perfectly content with their bed baths and 24/7 television, as though age and illness purifies us of our humanity. But here he sat, silent and trembling, wanting simply to be on the farm again, or actually visit his children instead of taking up their money and making them worry. "What good am I?" he asks quietly. My heart freezes. School does not prepare you to truly answer that question.  

Praying with Lloyd is the sweetest moment of the day. He reaches out his translucent and quivering hands (oh how like baby birds!) and grasps mine through once sterile gloves. It is a plain, calm prayer of thankfulness, asking for hope and purpose. There are things that hourly rounding, anti-anxiety medication, and psychotherapy will never be able to do. There are some questions that cannot be answered with words or therapeutic touch, or simply being kind.

A lot of the time, I'm just struggling to appear trustworthy, knowledgeable and professional. But the thing that people like the best is just carrying on a friendly conversation, and having silly things remembered about them. It's really not too extraordinary, I suppose. If I'm honest, those are the same things I want. My favorite people are those who make me feel like I belong in their lives, as though I'm useful, funny, respected, and important to them. I don't want sympathy or politeness, or flawless professionalism. I want to be seen for me, and to be liked for it. I want others to want the best for me.  I want my problems to touch someone else, so I feel less alone.

At the end of the day, my patients, coworkers, and family want the same things from me that I want from them. They don't care if I win professional awards. They want me to take a joke, give them truthful information, listen to their questions, and show up when I say I will. If I do those things in a decent, cheerful way, perhaps they'll feel  not only cared for, but worthy of being cared for. It's not because they're entertained, it's because I've become another human to them instead of a faceless professional. These actions say simply “As you wish,” which is, as we all know, the best way to say “I love you.” When we take time to kneel in the dust, to step inside another complicated life, we are often at our finest. Perhaps this is our true superpower.

                                                                                          

"Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God." 

3 John 5-6

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