This is what I just needed to say, I took more time to get it right. Hopeful conversation.
I feel privileged to work in the health care field. My job is all the behind the scenes missions to make it happen. That is the job I hold, but I make it my job to make our clinic different. Instead of routine appointments people most often have meaningful encounters at our facility. The patients come here to get better, but “better” can be a big word indeed. I always find I get back at least as much as I give, usually more. Never was that more clear than this week.
A new patient came in with her husband and their grown daughter. I was on the phone with a human being at an insurance company when they walked in. It is such an achievement to get to the human being part of an insurance call that I did need the patient to wait for a moment, but I did offer the forms the patient would need to fill out. I can hand the forms out through the window at my desk while I’m on the phone if need be. But I was to have an experience. The patient sat down due to her condition. Her daughter in a most usual fashion came over to get the forms. But the daughter had no arms or legs. I’ve worked with people who have disabilities for years but I’ve never encountered anything like this. She was able to move across the floor but I was not in a position to see how that was done, her waste was at floor level. She was obviously comfortable coming over for the forms, but I didn’t know exactly how to hand them to her. How was she going to take them from me?
I can hardly describe the comfort between us when she got to the window. I put the clip board of forms under her neck and let the pen slide down against her chin and she had everything fine. It was as if we had been doing that all along. Her father came in from parking their car. He gave me the forms when they were completed. I was taken up with data entry and answering phones, and I had no other contact with that woman except for friendly smiles. As they left I saw her father pick her up and put her in the back seat of the car. We just go through life with absolutely no idea what we take for granted.
I am hoping that over the course of her mother’s treatment I can see her again. I really would like to have a conversation. I have something to say and I’m not afraid to say it.
People like her save my life. She validates my life as nobody else does. People don’t see my disability. We go around as if nobody else has one, certainly not compared to her. She has no arms or legs. Well, I am seeing something else, constantly. I am seeing people with no love, no gratitude, no compassion for the human family with which we share this brief tiny life, no smile.
Would I trade places with her? Well- maybe. I really would sooner take her disability than be somebody who insults his wife. Somebody who tells his wife she is worthless and suggests she get some cosmetic surgery. His wife is beautiful, he can’t see that. That is a disability in my book.
Somebody’s child comes home with a bad report card, or a D on a test. His father yells at him, he cries. This child did not cheat, he did not goof around. He just needs somebody to take a little more time and explain a few things. But this weekend is the play offs. This kid can just try harder, and no ice cream tonight. I see a disability of priorities. Cruelty is a disability of soul.
There are homeless people around us, really. I came close. Misfortune can fall on anybody. So many people are blind to that. I remember those terrible days when I was getting close to the edge. I remember people watching it happen. There was no help to be had. I just gave my all and finally found water in the desert. Many people don’t. But we pay certain people millions of dollars to play games. Don’t tell me we don’t have a disability.
This sweet woman gave me a smile. So many people give me the third degree. It is their duty to inform me of all that is wrong with this awful world. It looks like there may be more snow next week. People love their problems instead of each other.
It is only when I am around this woman that I can stop dealing with all the disabilities causing pain in my life, and just smile.
