On the Way to Wonder

Sr. Wantabee was at the hospital yesterday. She only had the blessing of visiting with two patients as she had meetings but both had smiles on their faces.

The first man, married 47 years had lost his wife in February and was in for a hip replacement. He had first met his wife in high school and invited her to a dance – rather funny as he thinks about it as she was on crutches from an operation for being born without a hip socket. She was a good sport. They fell in love and had a wonderful marriage. Yes, she did develop rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinsons, cancer and multiple other problems that necessitated him leaving his employ to nurse her with her cancer last year. She had died a year later and now he faced the loneliness. All said with a smile! Such a horrendous story of struggle with illness and limitations through child bearing and life and he smiled. Did that smile hold back the tears, Sr. Wantabee wondered.

The next patient wanted to talk about her life too. “I’m a train wreck!” she shared with a smile. A fall had left her with a fractured shoulder that was undiagnosed which then necessitated a total shoulder replacement. She had now fallen again a year later breaking her humerous (an arm bone), ruining the first surgery and requiring more surgery. In the meantime her achillies heel had degenerated and needed to be rebuilt. Her beloved mother and friend had died. Her beloved dog of 5 or 6 years had died. She has Parkinson’s and will go home to a husband with Emphesema from smoking. We agreed that some days just don’t seem like living and when we get to heaven we want to go to the video library and see the replay of 19… so we can better understand the bigger picture that our little suffering fits into. Yes, she would love a prayer, and we bowed our heads together.

Both tales of woe told with smiling faces left Sr. Wantabee somehow sad. We each carry our tale of woe and challenges how do we tell our story? As a detached news reporter, as a victim of circumstances, as the master of our fate?? How does she see her life story – with a smile??

Yesterday Sr. Wantabee was back at the hospital. She met several very interesting patients. One, a handsome young man doing construction in a town she had eaten in during her trip West, had stubbed his toe in the airport, resulting in a huge inflamation and the exposure of an underlying infection. His care was no problem as he flew around the US doing construction, not married but his married friends wives cooked and cared for him, young, buff, and cared for. In the next room Sr. Wantabee met a tiny little lady from the East who was a Hindu by faith. Her daughter was there to translate but her English was actually very adequate. She had both knees replaced but one went bad and she was headed to the operation room. Being sick in a foreign country is noooo good, we both agreed.

The patient and her daughter gladly explained their faith to Sr. Wantabee and their Trinity: Brahma the creator, Shiva the bad guy, and Vishnu the nurterer. All have consorts. Prayer in their faith is more personal and done at home in a little temple area created in the home. The patient prayed daily and had a special relationship with the God of conservation, I think. But, she admitted, that she also had a statue of Mary and Jesus, in her temple area and included them in her prayer routine. Sr. Wantabee was touched that this lady, a foreigner, was able to incorporate aspects of Christianity into her faith routine. She was able to share about a previous experience in the hospital with a man who had his idol with him and had explained to Sr. Wantabee that the idol drew him into meditation on the truth behind the figure and the reality it represents. Likewise, the personage of Christ draws her into the reality that there is a God who reaches down, incarnates into human experience, to reconcile with us through the cross and who will go with her into the operating room.

We prayed and parted in tears. She because I understood her fear of another operation when the first somehow went bad and the doctor was struggling with a bad back…and perhaps my confidence that God cares about her and will be in the operation with her. Sr. Wantabee was teary, touched by a foreigner who was more willing to reach into her religion than she was to experience the others.

Perhaps Sr. Wantabee will meet again with this frail little lady on Thursday to hear how things went and to touch lives again across cultures.