I just returned from the emergency room in the hospital. I wasn’t there for myself, but for a co-worker’s husband who was in an auto accident. I really dislike the e.r., having spent a lot of my time there recently due to my own ruptured appendix. But that is another story, and I digress. Fortunately my friend was not injured seriously, and I was able to walk out of the hospital with him and his wife and his mom. The fact that he was not injured seriously did not however significantly alter the copious amount of time that one sits in the emergency room waiting. And so I sat there with them as well . . . . waiting. And as I did, I observed one of the most profound and wonderful gifts in this world: the blessing of having someone to care for and the equal blessing of being cared for. I saw it my co-worker and her husband (who are a relatively young couple) as he lay on the gurney and she gently stroked his arm, talked to him softly, and bent over and kissed him.
But the chair I was sitting in also afforded me a view of another couple; an elderly pair. He used a walker and was hooked up to a portable oxygen tank. It was his wife however, who was the patient. She was half lying, half sitting in a semi-fetal position, leaning against the pillows propped up on the side of her bed. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth hung open in that awkward way that happens when people fall asleep and breathe and drool at the same time. I am not sure if she was aware of his presence or not. Every now and again her legs would move and straighten in a spastic sort of way, causing her feet to go through the rails on the opposite side of her bed. And each time he would gently move them back onto the bed, pulling the covers over her legs and feet, tenderly stroking her calves. All this while he himself sat in his walker-chair breathing air from his own nasal cannula.
And then it hit me. This is it. To care for, and be cared for. There is no greater gift in this life. Whether you are young, resilient, and healthy, or old and unable to do the simplest things for yourself. And I thought of how blessed I am in the arena of care. And I also thought of all those who pass through our doors of the mission, who are void of care in their lives, either given or received, and the awesome opportunity and responsibility we have. May we by God’s grace minister real care to these children of the Father, and be at least half of the care equation in their lives.
Hanging with my papa . . .