Stages of the Journey
02/07/09 09:00
Sitting in the ICU waiting room, I could hear the
intercom occasionally chime and then play a
couple bars of Brahms’ Lullaby. After the fifth
time, I turned and look quizzically at the young
lady next to me. “Oh, they do that every time a
baby is born in the hospital.” Well, it had been
a busy day in the birthing wing. After that, I
smiled every time I heard the music.
The image of new, innocent life beginning in this building was a welcome contrast to what the people in this room were experiencing. We were all holding on to any shred of news that our loved ones were OK, that their surgeries had gone well, that the beloved elderly people down the hall would live to see another day (or year, or decade).
My mom had just come out of quadruple bypass surgery and was now recovering in this Intensive Care Unit. All had gone well, and I actually had little need to fear. Yet the very definition of life had become somewhat blurry this morning. In her surgery, her heart was stopped. Purposely. The very thing that has declared her to be alive for so long, her beating heart, was stopped. In exchange, a machine pumped her blood for several hours. Another machine provided her body and blood with much needed oxygen. In a way, she became part machine. OK, that’s weird…
The word finally came that we could go into ICU to see her. I recalled all the warnings about how she would look. A tube in her throat. Tubes in her neck. Tubes in her chest. Pale. Swollen. I figured I was prepared.
I wasn’t. She looked so dead, except for the fact that she was shivering quite a bit. This was apparently because of her meds. I found I couldn’t come any closer to her. I had to look away.
Brahms’ Lullaby played like a dirge in my mind as I looked at the woman who gave birth to me in the old location of this same hospital 36 years ago. My mind (and the nurse) told me how well she was doing, yet my emotions roared in my ears: “Something’s different…”
I held her hand and spoke to her, telling her how well she was doing. Her mouth would turn up slightly around the respirator tube, letting me know she could hear me through the cloud of drugs she was wandering through. Her eyes were closed, so she couldn’t see my wet eyes.
It had happened. I was more the parent now. Encouraging, calling out for more hard work, holding her hand to calm her fears, making sure she was being taken care of by the staff. Tomorrow would be more comfortable, more familiar, but for now the roles had finally, permanently changed in a way I couldn’t ignore. The next stage of this journey, the journey just begun by those precious infants in the birthing wing, had started for me.
Soli Deo Gloria
n
The image of new, innocent life beginning in this building was a welcome contrast to what the people in this room were experiencing. We were all holding on to any shred of news that our loved ones were OK, that their surgeries had gone well, that the beloved elderly people down the hall would live to see another day (or year, or decade).
My mom had just come out of quadruple bypass surgery and was now recovering in this Intensive Care Unit. All had gone well, and I actually had little need to fear. Yet the very definition of life had become somewhat blurry this morning. In her surgery, her heart was stopped. Purposely. The very thing that has declared her to be alive for so long, her beating heart, was stopped. In exchange, a machine pumped her blood for several hours. Another machine provided her body and blood with much needed oxygen. In a way, she became part machine. OK, that’s weird…
The word finally came that we could go into ICU to see her. I recalled all the warnings about how she would look. A tube in her throat. Tubes in her neck. Tubes in her chest. Pale. Swollen. I figured I was prepared.
I wasn’t. She looked so dead, except for the fact that she was shivering quite a bit. This was apparently because of her meds. I found I couldn’t come any closer to her. I had to look away.
Brahms’ Lullaby played like a dirge in my mind as I looked at the woman who gave birth to me in the old location of this same hospital 36 years ago. My mind (and the nurse) told me how well she was doing, yet my emotions roared in my ears: “Something’s different…”
I held her hand and spoke to her, telling her how well she was doing. Her mouth would turn up slightly around the respirator tube, letting me know she could hear me through the cloud of drugs she was wandering through. Her eyes were closed, so she couldn’t see my wet eyes.
It had happened. I was more the parent now. Encouraging, calling out for more hard work, holding her hand to calm her fears, making sure she was being taken care of by the staff. Tomorrow would be more comfortable, more familiar, but for now the roles had finally, permanently changed in a way I couldn’t ignore. The next stage of this journey, the journey just begun by those precious infants in the birthing wing, had started for me.
Soli Deo Gloria
n