Not a Private Room

I see that Daddy has been keeping everyone up to date on the medical front.  There really isn't any more to tell in that regard.  We are still waiting for Tuesday and surgery and hopeful that those things will bring our hospital stay to an end.  More on that as we know it.

In the meantime, there is something else I wanted to share.  The floor of the hospital on which we are staying is in the throes of moving.  Soon they will be in a shiny new wing, every room will be private and there will be proper beds for moms or dads, rather than the current cots of chain link fencing.  God willing, we will not be there to see it.

As it is now, most of the rooms are shared.  And, when the room is not private, neither are the worries and stories of the folks inside.  That has been a little hard.  Not because we worry what others may think or know about us, but because we begin to know them and to feel the weight of their struggles added to our own as they crowd into the corners and pathways of the one small room we both occupy.

In this Advent, this season of waiting, we have been waiting in a way that has before now has been unknown to us.  Before now the season of Advent has been one of reflection of preparation by meditation and self chosen penance.  This year there has been only the hard, numbing slog of actual, physical waiting.  A waiting that often closes the door on meditation and such like, insisting on its own course. In that, the waiting, we have found ourselves waiting, not alone, but with every other family that has shared the room.  There have been several.

Their stories are not mine to share, but as you prepare hearts and homes for Christmas this year I hope you will share some of the generosity that you have showered on us with those whose burdens have become mingled with our own.  The Louds, and the Twins, little Madison and Jacob and Mr. Scissors.  Some of them, most of them, have gone home now, though I doubt they are fully recovered.  Some remain on the floor.   When you stop to think of us, to pray for us, please spare a thought or word for them and pray that we will be able to shine some of the light of your love on those around us.