Hello,
This is a letter to the person who called on me as I lay sleeping in hospital one day.
At the time of the visit I didn’t think I knew her. A few days before, she’d visited me to tell me she was going to anaesthetise me. I joked with her that she shared a name with a friend of mine. That friend was a touch volatile with odd behaviours. It seemed funny to rib a person who was going to be in charge of my wellbeing. I didn’t think she’d follow up on my wellbeing without a schedule.
She actually came once before the visit in question. A few days after the op she found herself on the ward and noticed I was still there. We chatted. I felt human. She seemed equally human. It was very reassuring.
The thing is, as I say, she returned perhaps a week later whilst I lay sleeping. I remember that day. I’d had an afternoon nap, dangling my arm over the railing of the bed. There was some idea in my head that this would look cool to any passersby. I have no idea what that person thought.
The first I knew of the visit was when the student nurse named Destiny came and told me both that I’d had a visit from a Dr and that I’d messed myself. At the time I thought the Dr in question was a ward doctor. Therefore, my indisposition was a matter of course. In hospital my bowels belong to anyone who’s willing to help.
However, later on that day, Nadeem, the nurse proper, came and told me that it had been the anaesthetist from my operation who’d popped by. She’d wanted to see how I was had found me sleeping and told him to tell me she’d called. I know not whether she was aware of the state of my bed or indeed whether my bed was in any state other than pristine at her time of calling. The thing is, that moment sung out in my mind.
Sings out still. I was prone. Debilitated. If I didn’t smell, then so be it, but in my mind, I was less than functional. It’s not like the person knew that. How could they? I suppose it’s the fact that she returned that seals the instant in a protective shell. It made me feel worthy of a return trip. More than that, someone looked on me as I was sleeping to see if I was okay. Not someone who had any obligation to do so. A person chose to do it.
It is so important to me that I add to this world. It’s so distressing that I haven’t seen my children for ten years. I want to leave the world better than I came into it and yet in a relationship which I am paramount in developing, I seem to have failed. And I’m in a wheelchair. This seven yearlong situation has done nothing to affect the perception of those around my children. It also seems to me to be a sort of buffer that I allow to keep me from immediate, direct contact with the world.
I do bits and pieces of engaging with the systems that sustain us. Somehow though it never seems to add up to a whole. Yet here I am. And there I was. Lying in bed, eyes closed, a low whiff emanating from me, perhaps. And I had a caller. Someone cared and cared enough to come back days later and make sure I knew they’d made the effort. Not because they wanted me to feel like they were kind. The distinct impression I got was that they wanted me to feel like I’d touched them in our first brief interactions.
That is where to stop writing. Celebrating the kindness that animates. Which, after re-reading feels a bit abrupt. Yet I can’t see that there is anything wrong with that. As long as the person reading realises it’s the kindness given to me that animates me to give kindness.
Ad lib to fade. Five things I experienced about her – adventurous, responsible, fun, pretty, engaged.