Friday 30 January 2015

The Boss once more consults Q his spiritual director

The Boss hobbles into Q’s study on a crutch and settles down in the comfy armchair. He sighs and then says:
- But Q why did this happen to me…How did God let this happen… And why now… And what have I done to deserve this?
- It could have been worse!
- Whaat! The Boss was outraged.
- Well, God – if he did cause it – could have handed you an even worse accident!
- Even worse?
- Yes, brain injury for example.
- Oh.
The Boss was silent.
- Ok but the timing was awful… I was about to travel to Kenya to work there for a week.
- Hmm… but suppose it had happened closer to Christmas?
- That would have been unbearable… But are you saying that I should be thankful for small mercies… to count my blessings as my Grandmother to say?
- Cold do worse Boss.
- But really Q… why did this happen to me?
- You know! You served on your bike to avoid a pedestrian and-
- Don’t be supercilious with me Q. You know what I am asking!
- How this accident fits into the overall shape of things in God’s plan if you like?
- Yes.
- Well what happened to you in hospital and afterwards?
- I got bored a lot. Had to let people care for me even when I didn’t want them to. I was vulnerable, weak and needy which I hated. I was pathetically grateful when people did unexpected kind things for me. The male nurse who made me coffee and toast at 11pm when I was first admitted to hospital. The chatty volunteer who wheeled me in a wheel chair for communion that first Sunday.
- Hmm… a different experience of life for a while?
- Yes, and it continues. The crutch brings out the best and sometimes the worst in people, usually the best.
- Sounds like you are having a life changing experience.
- True.
- That strikes me overall as a good thing, whatever part God played or didn’t play in it.
- True and it was for me another opportunity to find out what really and truly matters to me.
- Well!

Saturday 24 January 2015

Hospital cycle poem

Hospital cycle poem

‘I’ll need a commode soon’
She nods
The feeling becomes urgent
‘I am going to shit myself’
The words are forced out of me
She moves quickly
And arrives back
Just in time
It was a close one.

It was blind Colin
Blundering out of bed
Setting his alarm off
That woke Samuel
Who immediately began to
Climb out of his bed
Eric was asking for a nurse
In his quiet well-bred voice
It’s 4am and where am I?
Oh Yes, trauma ward in the hospital.

We settle down and then
Out of the frame
Rachel kicks off
‘Get out of here’
‘Get out of here’
She screams
And nurses get hit.

I don’t belong here
Well it’s true
I crashed off my bike
But these other guys
Have much longer back stories.

She wheels me to the chapel
For a moment of rest
And reflection
Bathed in the colours of the stained glass
And I’m weeping
Glad to be alive
And out of my head on morphine.

I feel a fraud
Just in for a quick bit of bone setting
And seeing how stressed
And over worked the nurses are
And how other people’s needs
Are legion
Compared with mine
But

It’s 9pm
And I’m wide awake
And the nurses don’t need me
I need them
But they are far away
It takes an eternity for them to
Respond to my buzzer
Or so it seems
And it’s soon over
And they vanish into the dark again
Or so it seems
It’s easier if you have
Simple physical doable needs
Or so it seems
Feeling lonely and
Needing a bit of company
Is different
Or so it seems.