A year ago, I had an hour to pass waiting for someone at St. Mary’s Hospital. I was looking for something to do while they had a test and took the occasion to walk to the patient and visitor cafeteria for lunch. As I sat there with my sandwich and a drink I observed others in the room. It was a rather sobering hour of reflection. A hospital does not catch you at the best in your day.
A family with three teenage kids was sitting by the wall. They were all focused on talking and eating and sort of ignoring the one child, a boy in his late teens. He just sat there lost in thought not touching his food. The rest seem oblivious to his plight. I sensed that his mind was in a much darker place than his family was aware of. A young person should be filled with plans and dreams of the future and not staring down the dark tunnel of hopelessness.
A woman in her early thirties was sitting all alone at a small round table. She looked haggard and worried and seemed to be shouldering her sadness all by herself. There was a look of trepidation and fear etched in her face. The whole food thing was more of a distraction than a necessity, one was supposed to do it whether you were hungry or not. At noon you found food and then tried to tell your body to consume it because it was needed. Even if your body didn’t want it or was ready to reject it.
A couple that looked to be in their sixties were sitting right behind me. While moving a chair to get more comfortable, the man bumped into me and said he was sorry. Then we struck up a conversation. He had been a working man all his life and a diagnosis had brought him to Rochester. They had exhausted all the remedies that the medical community had to offer, and he was resigned to the fate he was facing. His concern was more of how his wife would fare in the future without him. He didn’t show any bitterness or remorse for the health problem that he was facing, but just a practical factual assessment of the situation. What was interesting was that he wanted to talk to me about Jesus. He didn’t believe that his life was particularly worth holding on to, but that there was something better awaiting him. He wanted to be sure his wife was cared for after he was gone and also share the comfort that he felt about where he was going.
The fourth couple sat at a small table to the left of me and I deduced that they were an old farm couple. He wore a seed corn hat and she was in a farm wife’s house dress. They were finishing the meal and she was concerned that the extra packets of condiments were not wasted but taken home for a future use. A practical woman, being sure that nothing was wasted even though her body was wasting away from something she had no control of. He was uncomfortable in the surroundings, unsure of what he was going to do without her company in the future and completely helpless in the current situation.
I felt a sense of somberness looking around because I had lived through these age groups in my life. I had stopped at this cafeteria to pass an hour of time during my busy day and now I was witnessing four lives possibly watching what little time they had left slip through the hour glass of life. It is good to look at others through a different lens and feel empathy for what they may be going through. And take the time and effort to be kind because you never know what their life may actually be like.
