A Day in the Life…
August 27, 2009
What? No ether? The last time I had surgery, they used ether. And there were nuns. Lots of nuns. Waverly’s St. Mary’s Hospital (like my tonsils) is a long memory away.
At the risk of doing the “have I shown you my scar?” thing, I feel like I’ve been to school. I’ve been wondrously blessed to have avoided surgery for 47 years. I have sat by your bedsides and of those you love for lo, these many years, over 34 in my career. As sympathetic as I’ve tried to be, in this week I can say that I have a little better sense of what you’ve been going through. Sympathy – having common feelings, and a sense of connection with another.
From gurney-side to gurney-top: it’s just not the same view. What a difference a changed angle makes, from upright to supine. Some of you can identify with the waiting. The stream of cheery operation personnel who do their bit to put us at ease. The surgeon signing your leg – hey, they’ve got to do something to insure getting it right, or as in my case, left. Then there’s wheeling down the hall. Slow down, people! A function of the creeping anesthesia, I’m sure, as I recalled as many madcap hospital gurney chases as the fuzz would allow. The Marx Brothers and Three Stooges are still in head, I can attest.
From there, it was mostly waking up, degoofying enough to leave the hospital and head for home. It is remarkable that the timing of arrival at home and the onset of post-op pain could be so precisely timed to coincide. I’ll leave out the details of what followed, just know it got better. And all this is as an out patient.
I am not only repositioned for all that, but to testify to the love and support of community. I’ve known that, of course, in a variety of ways, especially in the seasons of grief that have touched my family. I have a fresh look, though, at what it means to have a prepared meal brought to me, cards to arrive, phone calls, emails. Several have stepped up to do the things I can’t do until my “step” returns. It all gives me a renewed sense of St. Paul’s teaching, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 12:8).
I don’t know that the various events of life can move us from sympathy to empathy, that is, feeling what the other feels. What I do know is that I still cannot say, “I know exactly how you feel.” We’re as unique as snowflakes, and so our our experiences, our feelings. What I also know is that I can come a little closer to where you are in a time of need.
Pastor Steve