I don't know him

The hospital.  Patients.  People.  Each unique in character molded by joys, tragedies, everyday life decisions and unavoidable events to bring them to this place.  Most leave with another mark that further delineates their distinctiveness, but not all.  Some disappear.  Evaporate.  Their bodies remain, but they are void, lifeless.  

 

That was him.  He was there in the hospital, but I never knew him...or maybe I got a phone call for sleeping aids or blood pressure in the middle of the night, but never saw his face...I do not know his name...  And now he is gone.  His wife.  Suddenly forever separated while she still breaths this air.  When was their last embrace?  Was there even a phone call to say "I love you"?  And as the story was told from another, I wonder at his last hours and days...  Isolation with strange creatures in masks and yellow gowns to care for him.  Did he get human touch?  Hear kind voices and words?  Were his needs met by these aliens?  And his wife...  Over 50 years of togetherness now shattered and gone forever.  No time to prepare for this outcome.  This dissolving him... her true love.  

 

And now...right now...how many more are their like him in the hospital?  How many are silently disintegrating with alarms that no one hears?  What can I do?  How can I love them well and encourage others to do the same?  This work.  This honor.  This gift to love people.  It's much more than a job, it's a task, a quest in these days of the unknown challenges.  One breath at a time, one step to keep moving forward.  Each encounter has a face, name, story.  Each one is precious.  I don't know him, but each day there are several I do know.  Several to love and serve and show kindness.

Him

 Methodically walking down the extensive hallway to another bend and another corridor...he had a distant feeling of a toddler's perspective with overbearing walls and a building that seemed to swallow him.  Determination would keep him going though, for he was on a mission and despite the limitations and battle of a fragile and aging body, he would conquer the quest.  The greatest of his current life, to see his true love before the hospital doors slammed closed for the night.  Though brave and a fighter, one look in his eyes and the vulnerability could not be held back as moisture form.  Such pain and loneliness.  Misplaced with the foreboding future just ahead.  The one who knew him better than anyone, the one he protected and loved was gone from his dwelling...slain by the beast of disease.  Would this be a permanent separation?  The man didn't know, but he grabbed at the present and overcame barriers others don't know exist to make it to her door, her room, her bedside.  There he sat.  There he waited and treasured each precious minute in the home created by the physical nearness of togetherness.

Love is powerful