Health care workers teach us so much about loveFOREIGN VIEWS
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Dear Yong,
Your column last Friday (鈥淎 smile can be the most precious medicine鈥) reminded me of similar experiences I have had with health care personnel here in the States, both back in Iowa and so far here in Portland.
It occurred to me that perhaps it is because they are engaged in the most spiritually 鈥渃orrect鈥 of human behavior 鈥 caring for others. Health care personnel are devoted to the reduction of human suffering, and it is in this ministry and in their orientation that they teach the rest of us what it is to be most fully human! In a world filled with so much hate and violence their example is a shining torch toward the truly correct path. I join you in recognizing and in saluting them!
Your discussion of your father also brought back some memories of health care personnel who cared for my parents.
My mother was in hospital for the last week of her life; towards the end she lapsed into a coma. The day she died I had been by her hospital bed for many hours that morning and, close to collapse from my own overwhelming sorrow (I was 28) I leaned over her and said, 鈥淢om, is it OK with you that I go home for a couple of hours? I鈥檒l be back later.鈥
To my great surprise, she responded with a distinctive sound 鈥 not an identifiable word, but a clear indication that 鈥 even in her coma 鈥 she had heard me and was giving me permission to leave for a while.
As it turned out, I had not been at home for all that long before the hospital called telling me that Mom had died.
I rushed back, stunned, and as I approached her room I noticed several (three or four) of the nurses who had been caring for Mom standing outside her room crying.
Good women
How lovely that in the short time she had been there these good women had come to care for her so much!
As I nodded at them through my own tears, I noticed that one of them was pregnant. I have remembered this as a poignant reminder that, even in midst of death, there is new life. In a strange way, that brought a small measure of comfort to me.
For the next several months after Mom鈥檚 death, I made it a point to often stay over at Dad鈥檚 house just to keep an eye on him, hoping that my presence would make it seem less 鈥渆mpty.鈥 (As if Mom鈥檚 clothing and the very walls themselves did not constantly testify to the great vacuum created by her absence!)
In the middle of one of those nights I awoke to hear Dad struggling to breathe 鈥 he had suffered from asthma ever since he had been a boy.
Clearly, the incredible stress of losing his wife, while still trying to perform his work, was taking a toll on his health.
I bundled him into my car and rushed him to a nearby hospital. As he was waiting to be examined, I happened to hear one of the young men working at that hour ask another, 鈥淲ho鈥檚 the old man?鈥
鈥淲hat old man,鈥 I thought, as the only ones in the room were my father and myself. Then I realized that for this young fellow about my own age my father 鈥 looking frail and reduced, but only 62 鈥 looked 鈥渙ld鈥 to him.
That incident reminded me of the Scottish poet Robert Burns musing about the gift of 鈥渟eeing ourselves as others see us.鈥 (Ah, yes, but whose eyes are those seeing us? How differently we 鈥渟ee鈥 each other.)
That incident caused me to 鈥渟ee鈥 my father anew, and made his good, life-worn face all the more precious to me.
Saints still walk among us today, disguised as smiling health care personnel though they might be.
Peace to you, my friend,
Greg
Greg Cusack has been a college teacher of American history and political science, the director of the US National Catholic Rural Life Conference; he served as a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives, and retired from public service in the Iowa executive branch in 2004.
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