The Family That Waits

"Jan, come on, we gotta go." He calmly told me as he came to the screen door.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. I knew immediately something had happened simply because of his request. As I turned to see him standing on the front porch, I saw him holding his gloved hand upright with his other hand. “What happened?” I exclaimed; this time closer to panic.

“Oh, the cutter,” he muttered, “we have to find an emergency clinic.” I grabbed my purse trying hard to remember to breathe. I knew this moment would someday come, and I also knew I was not good in moments like this.

“Boy, I don’t know where the closest one is; let’s go up to the fire house. They will have a paramedic on there.” I breathlessly suggested.

“Ok, now don’t panic,” he lectured. “I am ok.” He didn’t know what it was that I suspected, and I did not know at this time, what he suspected. Both suspicions were one in the same: that he would not take his glove off, because of a fear that the finger was no longer attached.

I rang the bell at the station…no answer. I rang it again, this time holding the button a little longer. A young man quickly opened the door, with an expectant look on his face of an impending emergency. When I saw him, I knew he had been on his way at the first ring. Ouch. I wanted to tell him I was sorry for my impatience, but instead I asked him, "Is there a paramedic on duty?”

“EMT”, he responded, “what happened?” So as my husband explained his situation, the young man on duty took us back and told my husband to step up into the ambulance. I took the opportunity to turn away and breathe a quick prayer. I couldn’t watch. Remember, I don’t do this kind of thing well.

As they removed the glove, I heard one of the men on duty say, “Well, you still have a finger.” Then my husband’s chuckle, “Yeah, I wasn’t sure.”

They cleaned the wound and bandaged it up and told us they could take us to the emergency room at the hospital, or if we preferred, we could drive ourselves. We all knew now that the wound had been cleaned and dressed, we would be able to drive ourselves as easily as they could.

So off to the ER we went with me as a calmer driver now that the wound had been looked at by a professional. I knew things would take longer than they should at the hospital. Four hours to be precise. It isn’t our sleepy, little town any longer.

Surgery was scheduled for the next day – this would be at the larger hospital in the larger nearby city. Though we were told it would be a surgery that lasted 2 or 3 hours, I thought with check-in and recovery and things simply going as they normally do, it would end up being the full day. So I packed a bag of things that I thought I would need as I waited. A couple books, because I knew I would need a change from Dickens to something lighter. A couple magazines, because I knew there would be a time I needed something even lighter still; and I packed my blanket. Yes! My blanket! After sitting four hours in the chill of the emergency room, I wasn’t about to be cold again. Mr. Air Conditioning and I do not get along well.

Once checked in, it wasn’t long before they called my husband back for all the pre-tests.

Through the whole ordeal, my husband was, as is always his character in a tough situation: calm, quiet, and without complaint…accepting.

Once he was off to surgery, I settled in. The waiting room was fairly spacious and comfortable with lots of windows. I chose a window seat… I was glad that I had, as later in the day it offered warmth from the afternoon sun. I was able to do quite a bit of reading. But without choice, I also overheard many of the reasons that people were there also waiting: a tonsillectomy; removal of a tumor; prostate surgery; most were minor surgeries that would allow the patient to go home the same day, or within a day or two. Though privacy was attempted, through the doctors’ reports, or cell phone calls to other loved ones, one could not help but hear some of the conversations.

I eventually caught on to the rhythm, if you will, or the sequence of events that involved each family that was in the room waiting. I marveled. Each waited, reading or visiting with other family members. The surgeon would come out and give a report to the family member waiting. I could tell the doctors were exhausted, though these professionals would not let on. I thought about the stress they were under because of their profession and I knew they deserved their title, deserved our respect and should be appreciated. Each time it was good news!That is amazing to me. Ok maybe that shouldn’t surprise me. Medicine has come so far and what we experience here in America is the best in the world. We have so much to be thankful for, I thought. Once given a report, the family member would sit back and wait some more.

One patient had 13 – 14 family members waiting. It was so heart-warming! Fourteen members of this family took time out of their day - actually a full day as I overheard this would be an 8 hour surgery - to sit around a hospital room where they could do nothing but support one another. It was remarkable! Incredible - when you think about that many gathered together…just to wait. And when I saw them get a phone call of yet another family member requesting direction to their location, I watched as one who was probably the oldest sibling sent another down to help usher in an elderly couple. This couple was probably in their eighties and had also come to wait with the others. All ages of this family was present and it reminded me of my own family. Had my situation been something more serious, or had I requested it, my family would be there for one another too. I reflected on what a wonderful thing God created in families. And though I did not know this family, I was proud of them. What an awesome thing!

As I sat, I noticed a Bible on a shelf toward the front of the room. How nice to see that there. I found I would need it to verify a reference as I read an article in a magazine. When I took a walk down the hall to look for a snack, I noticed the history of the hospital written on the wall. “Ministers of Jesus Christ” something read. This hospital, too, had been started by Christians. I didn’t know that previously. As I walked back to my chair, I noticed the phone on the desk at the front of the room. A plaque that sat in the center of the desk directed: “Answer the phone if it rings. It is for someone in the room.” I watched amazed as each time the phone was answered it seemed to be for the one that answered it.

Once in a while during the day, memories would enter my thoughts to which I was not willing to return on this day. I kept pushing them back…adding sandbag after sandbag to keep them from flooding the home of my thoughts. Though the situations here were not nearly as dire, I couldn’t help but think about another hospital room I once sat in. It was an entirely different situation and an entirely different hospital – Harborview - one of the best trauma hospitals in the nation. There, grief was the overpowering emotion. There, family members sat sometimes alone, sometimes quietly conversing with others. Some sat with heads in their hands, some sat curled up asleep on a chair with a blanket. I remember when I was there, knowing the cleanliness of my loved one that would at some point need one of these blankets, I had found myself wondering when was the last time they had been washed. Unimportant…a life in the balance, and grief, buoyed only slightly by hope, was the only important thing there. There my son, who was 13 at the time, grew to be a man in merely a day. I didn’t want to think about these memories, so I shook the thoughts from my head. I had to do this more than once, because if I allowed an entrance, floodgates would open that I am not always prepared to revisit. More sandbags!

Our surgeon came out looking for me at just the right time. I waved catching his attention. He came over to me smiling. “We’re done,” he told me, “It went well. One of the tendons was stretched, so that presented a bit more of a challenge to repair, but all is good. You might as well sit back and have a cup of coffee; it will be an hour or so before he wakes up.” I thanked him and smiled at the report that came with a trace of a southern accent. I appreciate this surgeon that brought me my good news. I sat back to wait, but without coffee…the pot was empty.

The truth of the matter, though the situations I watched here weren’t the direst of conditions in comparison to the other hospital, it was all very thought provoking. We are so blessed to live in the country that we do. God’s miracles through what man pridefully calls his modern medicine happen every day. The truth is, all the glory belongs to God. All the knowledge and wisdom we have is His. We are blessed to live in this time of success.

We aren’t blessed because we are worthy. We are blessed because we are His. There-in lays one of the dangers of allowing our nation to be stripped of the definition of our nation that has always been understood since its beginning…a Christian nation. To not preserve this definition is to join the ranks of those that seek to destroy our heritage.

There you go again, Jan. Are you even going to get political about a situation as simple as this? Yep! I guess so, because I believe “Politics” is merely a dirty word someone created to keep us from being involved with life. In my opinion, life is about two things: Jesus Christ- the Author and Finisher of our faith which includes sharing His Good News, and secondly what some would call “politics” which allows us to be able to walk circumspectly through this life, and which also allows us to protect and preserve our faith so that we might continue to share it. Our Founding Fathers, having been closer to those that had once almost lost their faith, understood this and through what I believe was also God’s wisdom offered us a means to protect our faith. Yes, we are blessed!

The phone rang and this time I answered it. I didn't have to wonder; I knew it was for me.

“‘C.’ family?” the voice on the other end inquired. “Yes!” I said.

“He’s awake. Come to room 13.”

May God bless those in His care with what is entirely His medicine, and may God bless the family that waits.

That Which Remains

I killed it. I don’t know how. But it had to have been me. I really didn’t notice that it wasn’t doing well, until one spring I saw one lonely golden flower dangling from the left side of the tree. My Golden Chain was my favorite tree in the yard, and I killed it.

The previous owners of our home – Mr. and Mrs. Z. - would probably be turning in their graves if they knew! I also destroyed her strawberry patch. When we first moved in to our new home, I had a couple of good years with the strawberries. Eventually though, they started producing less and less until one year they were simply gone. I tried planting wild flowers there, and that was kind of nice toward the end of summer, but it took so long for them to bloom each year, that I finally got tired of how “messy” it looked there in that patch before I had flowers there to brighten my yard. This year I used my mower to mow away all that mess.

Daddy Meadowlark

Then there’s the birds! Mr. and Mrs. Z. loved birds and had a little bird haven here. I have found that I love them too, and have tried my best to support and protect them. We have dogs, though. So, it was only a season or two, before the mourning doves that came to the front yard feeder each morning, no longer came.

The meadowlarks and bluebirds are my favorites; mainly because they remind me of my childhood, but also of course, because they are both so beautiful. The thing is: we have horses, so we hay our fields. I try my best to encourage my husband to spray the fields early in the spring before the meadowlarks have nested. And I am always hopeful that the little families are gone by the time we cut and bail in July. But we do need to work the land, so this one is out of my control. I can only leave this situation and those much appreciated warblers to God. 

Mr. Blue Bird

Mr. Z. had placed a blue bird box in a strategic place in the pasture. It gave us the best view of the blue birds when they came to nest each spring. Unfortunately, when it was time for the little blue birds to learn to fly, they flew directly into our fenced yard where the dogs are. I had the awesome opportunity to rescue the little fledglings one year, which will be for another post some day. But as it happens, the horse put an end to that box, by using the pole for a scratching post. He eventually knocked it down. Fortunately no birds were nesting at that time. The activity around the new horse barn and the new horse kept the blue birds from ever coming back.

The blue birds are my absolute favorite birds, so of course we put up other boxes for them. But the location for viewing isn’t quite as good.

Then there are the cats….Oh my! Someone saw it in their “good judgment” to drop off a couple of cats at our place. The cat I had for 19 years had died and I was never going to have a cat again. I always marvel that people think that they know best for you and would do something like that. Yes! I think it was someone I know. Not only could I not afford to keep these two felines immunized, but they just didn’t belong in the bird sanctuary that the previous owners had created. Of course, we would learn to love them, but that doesn’t mean we want them, can take care of them, or are glad they came. It has been a nightmare. But because we now already had two cats, when a friend asked, we gladly took another to help their family when they moved out of state. It was very important what this family was going to be doing, and the kids needed to know their cat was in a good home. This was our choice; and I could not have been happier to be able to help this family in some small way; but the other two cats? I still shake my head over that little situation.

Needless to say, the cats have brought some change. I remember the look on Mrs. Z’s face when we were about to buy their place and I told her I had a cat - the old one that was 19. “Oh, but she is really old, de-clawed, and stays in the house all the time,” I reassured her. I felt so bad she was worried for her birds.

Anyway, I often lament the changes that we brought to our new place. I loved it the way it was, too. And I really wanted to be a good steward of this home. But I love it even more now. It has become our home, and God could not have picked out a better place for us. That is a whole other blog post coming, too.

One day, after loosing our Golden Chain - ours and the Z’s - I was feeling discouraged about the changes we have made to this place. I was talking to family members, about all the changes that I have mentioned above, kind of forgetting temporarily about everything good that remains. My brother-in-law stopped to encourage me. “Yeah, but Jan,” he said, “This is your place, now. These changes reflect your life and the changes have been made to fit your needs. You have a garden that the other people didn’t have, and dogs that you love, and horses. This is your place now,” he lovingly lectured. His comments really warmed my heart!

So as I write, all is peaceful and still, except for the sound of the falling rain outside my open screen door…which by the way, we added…because I love old fashioned screen doors. I look out my window to see a western blue bird scrimmaging with a swallow around the birdhouse on the deck. A little late for that type of activity, and I wonder what is up with that situation…plus, the bluebirds have never nested in that house before. Curious. Our horse is in his barn, with just his head sticking out in order that he might avoid a morning shower to wash his dirty coat which he seems to love to keep. My lab is asleep on the porch and the beagle asleep at my feet and yep - my brother is right!  I can’t think how many times this brother has encouraged me; probably to him, most often unknowingly. I love him to pieces! And I love our home, even though the cats need to be fed this morning and challenge my affections daily.  Yep!  I loved our home right from the start and I love even more, all that remains.

Yeah, I know! She's beautiful.