Compassion is Grace

It is a completely different day today. Bonnie is showing signs of recovery. The liver and the kidneys are still an issue but I am hopeful for full recovery… hopeful. I’m not so sure the Dr.s are disclosing everything to me… they are sometimes overly cautious in what they tell me and I can’t blame them for that. However, I do get an overall impression that Bonnie has a good chance to fully recover. It could be wishful thinking on my part too so I am prepared for it otherwise. It takes some degree of surrender… accepting the powerlessness but still holding on to that fight to overcome. After all, what is all this business of recovery about anyway?

            I sit at her bedside and hold her hand as she says the same phrases or words over and over again…. as though her brain is on auto-pilot and is going over a flight pattern that is obscure to me. I wonder what is going on in her mind. We hope it is the repairing process… employed after millions of years of evolution… a place where poets and dreamers go… perhaps.

            Medical science: I’m afraid that all this technical equipment is alienating nursing skills away from TLC and redefining them in terms of monitoring computer screens. One older nurse admitted to me… “It is all a numbers game now.” She knew as well as I know that the human touch is becoming alien to the present generation of the practice. That is why it is all the more important for family or friends to be involved with doing things like holding a hand and assuring, with a calm and kind voice, that they are loved and cared for.

           I can tell which ones “get it” when I come back from home from a night of rest and see clean sheets and her bed clothing neatly arranged in the morning. A good example of this happened yesterday. When I returned from running some errands, I asked the nurse, who was fully engaged with the monitor screen, how Bonnie was doing. Her answer was discouraging, saying there was no improvement from when I left… Bonnie still didn’t respond to us and that she didn’t open her eyes or recognize anyone. I simply gave Bonnie a sop of water and told her I love her. She opened her eyes immediately and said I love you too. The nurse was surprised. I was not. It is a sad thing but it told me how important it is that I be there even when it looked like my presence was useless. The Heart of Compassion is there when I am compassionate. Compassion is the Grace of God.

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