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I think about her as I first met her. Blond hair matted to the back of her head. Errant strands extended around her face. A nasty bald patch with a purple scab the size of a half dollar, centered on the lower back half of her head. Her eyes bulged from her sunken sockets. She looked up at me from the bedside commode weak and pathetic. Her frail skinny body could barely hold her up. It was her face. The face I’d seen on Utica Avenue so many times growing up. Though they were usually more wild and animated, high off the latest street chemical. She looked like a classic crackhead. I found her repulsive. After helping her back to bed, I inquired about her at the desk.
Yeah she’s an addict. She looks like she’s pregnant, but it’s just ascites, though she does have six kids.
Six kids? Six Kids! With how many daddy’s I wondered.
I thought about her weak body and barely present state of mind. I could see she had once been very beautiful. Her eyes were large, lighted with crystal blue. Her hair under all the dirt was natural blond. Her kids must be lucky at least in the looks department I thought. Though I wondered somewhere in my mind how they could have survived pregnancy with an addict as a mother?Every time I entered her room I cringed inside. I hated her for what she did to herself and for what I thought she did or didn’t do for her kids.
She rang the call bell often to get her on and off the bedside commode. Sometimes she could barely stand and I had to stand there next to her with a close up view of her protruding bones, bruises and track marks.
I could never tell her how I felt or even imply it. As a patient she deserved kind care despite how she treated herself. So I proceeded with the usual courteous behaviors of asking how she felt as I listened to her pee. I didn’t like her but she wasn’t my assigned patient so I didn’t see her too often.
Then today, my twelve hour day, she was assigned to me. I figured I’d deal, but a part of me felt bad about my reaction to her. I went into the room and someone had cut her hair. She looked like a skinny little boy. A little boy with a crew cut. She had the marine look about her but she was in no way strong. Her presence was that of a child.
I had to bathe her. A task I imagined would be quick and thorough. I washed her face. She wet her hair can you spike it for me, she asked as she handed me the comb. I thought it was pointless but I did it anyway. She was so grateful. We got to talking, I asked about her kids. At points she was quiet. Resistant to talking. A heavy shame and sadness hung over her and spread across her face. I felt bad for bringing her kids up.
She always thanked me every time I helped her into bed, and apologizing every timed I cleaned her urine and poop up. I reassured her that it was my job and she shouldn’t apologize. But I could tell she was genuinely grateful.
How did she make it to forty in such a mess?
Later when passing the desk her nurse said to me
I love my lady in two-eleven. She’s always so thankful.
And she was.
Three hours left to my twelve hour shift, three days since I met my little lady in single two double one. She was still weak though we talked more, this time about the series of kids movies she watched all day. We laughed at Dennis the Menace as I checked her blood sugar. It was high but she wasn’t. She was nice.
I wondered if her kids knew this side of her, or what side of her they knew or if they knew her at all. Her nurse said our little lady said she lost custody of her oldest daughter because she put alcohol before her kids, but she changed.
She was an alcoholic but she wasn’t anymore. What was she? I wasn’t sure. I wondered how many years she has? I wanted to think she could turn her life around. I couldn’t be to sure about that. But I realized at six-thirty, clock out time, I liked her.
Somehow her ugly ailments and beaten body became human over the course of the day.
My eyes saw the same wounds but they did not repulse me. Maybe I was desensitized, but she was sweet and thankful, despite her brokenness.
She wasn’t the only one. The illnesses and skin crawling diagnoses always freak me out. When I start my shift, a part of me wants to run to the elevator and not look back at the closing door. But at the end of the day, the scary gross looking person is not just a diagnosis. The person is alive with a lot more to them than their diagnoses, and somehow that illness just doesn’t loom as large.
As I thought about this evolution in my thoughts, through a work day, I wondered if G-d ever looks at us the same way?
Our ugliness tracking down our arms, violations of the six thirteen leaving penetrating wounds to our core. I wonder if G-d looked at me and found me repulsive? I’m sure I’ve had my days. It’s not always easy to look back into my reflective mirror, snapshots of my past staring back at me. And yet, my little blond lady in two eleven became human to me. And I hope and wonder, could I become soulful to G-d?