The chill was noticable as I entered the hallway in the hospital from the parking ramp. I'll never understand why hospitals are freezing cold, probably so we're reminded of how close we are to the morgue. There were signs everywhere, and no where. The letters ICU were what I was looking for, but I didn't see a sign directing me to the intensive care unit where the patient lies. I didn't want to be there, and I know the patient doesn't want to be there either. But I can leave, he can't.
I haven't been in a hospital for years for a reason. They are not pleasant places to visit. The long, cold hallways, with gurneys and people scurrying around in scrubs. The quiet, the smell. All of it strong, depressing reminders of the sick and dying. But, sometimes you're in a place you don't want to be. Whether it's a physical place like a hospital, or in a situation where you have to share or receive bad news. Really bad news. When something tragic and unexplainable happens to someone, something that is miles away from what I'm able to emphathize with emotionally, I think to myself, "how do they go on after this"?
We never want to make room in our lives for things we don't want to be there, but sometimes we have no choice; and can't control what comes in or goes out anyway. We just have to accept things for the way they are. So when life's hardballs are thrown at our gut, there's nothing we can do about it, we just need to make space in our hearts for the sad and icky things we're afraid of, and learn to live with it. We learn that some circumstances aren't hurdles to knock down, because they serve us and show us that we need to change directions. We learn to embrace them for that, even though we don't love them at all. The purpose the hardship serves is a process where we learn what doesn't work; and it's usually far more important that what does.
So, another sad visit in the hospital with tears and despair as the situation changes, but not necessarily better. The future will be different that I've ever imagined, having not experienced this kind of tragedy before. We can only connect the dots backward, and we have to trust that the dots forward are connectable.
