Читать книгу House Calls with Jesus - Jude Lee - Страница 7

Deep Calls to Deep

This small house with a sitting porch, a few chairs to watch the road, fields and sky is home to one in her nineties. You can smell the stories as you step out of the car, in the trees, the damp fields, the various remnants of human life scattered amongst the weeds and gravel carport. The “front room” is dimly lit, small, dwarfed by a good-sized man whose voice breaks the reverie of the smell of rain, rotting leaves, and open field.

Ya need some help with that?

No, but thanks.

His hand is big, worn, firm. His sister is quiet, tender tough. Her tiredness pervades her eyes and shoulders. She hesitantly hovers as I prepare to see her mom. Her mom is feisty with a reputation of kicking people out of her room. For one bed bound and having eaten very little for eight weeks, she is sharp and no nonsense. Her previous visitor, the hospice chaplain had asked her how she was. He was greeted with a grunt. To his query, “How many children do you have?” she had retorted, “That is a stupid question, get out!”

She is a diminutive wisp of a woman, white hair stark against the nutty, gnarly skin of her face. She has the country style “do” of the South, pulled back, simple bun. She watches me. I stand hesitantly at the threshold of her room. I do not go in.

May I come in to see you? I am Dr. Lee.

Hunh.

I hear tell you are quite a woman. May I come in?

Yes.

Her voice is firm, quiet, filled with authority. I smile, I have met my match. She watches me, eyes sharp, sunk deep in a face of brown wrinkles. Hands thin, so thin with nails curving two inches beyond the weather worn skin that clings to the bones. I lean in, touch her hand.

How are you?

Hunh.

We look at each other. The silence fills the room. Her daughter shifts and speaks:

“Talk to her mom, talk to her. Hey, the doctor is here and she won’t talk to her.”

The brother appears, concerned.

It’s ok, I say to the daughter, turning to her mother again.

We stare at each other. The quiet is warm, her face relaxes.

You must have incredible stories to tell.

I do.

It would be wonderful to hear them.

A grimace, a groan, a wave of nausea distorts her face. It is some time before she is able to compose herself. I ask her about the “spells.” She answers, short, concise, to the point.

Well, Mrs. Day, may I take a look at you, check you over?

Ok.

The bedrails are up, creating an uncomfortable barrier to contact, to touch. In the struggle with them, the clanging metal is sharp, stark in this room of stillness. The daughter hovers. The silence builds.

Just going to take your blood pressure.

I lean over, the bed invites me to sit with her tiny frame. The hand on the dial registers her blood pressure, her eyes stare unwaveringly at my face.

Ah, Mrs. Day, you are something. Let me listen to your heart.

Her hand freed from the blood pressure cuff suddenly moves, the long nails reach toward my face, the one glancing off my cheek.

Missed your face, she says and settles her open palm on my cheek.

Her hand is warm, rough, gentle, waiting, on my cheek. I smile. It stays there as I listen. She slides it to my waist and the memory of a mother patting her daughter brings tears to my eyes. Pat, pat, pat, pat. I listen, I touch and brush the wisps of hair from her face and return the gentle caress to the worn and wrinkled face. Her eyes close.

She’s falling asleep, the doctor’s here and she’s falling asleep.

I think she is just resting. Pat, pat. Pat, pat.

She knows. She hears. She keeps her eyes closed. Her daughter slips out.

Are you in pain?

No.

Do you have these spells often?

Sometimes.

Would you like me to give you something for them?

Yes.

We “set” then, she and I, and silence joins us, giving space, and place to be before You, Lord, God, what a space, what a place.

Mrs. Day, I often ask my patients if they would like me to pray for them. Would you like that? If you would prefer me not to, well, that would be just fine also.

Yes, she nods. I take her hand, she closes her eyes and You, O Lord, bathe us in Your love.

Thank you, she murmurs.

I touch her cheek. May I come back to see you?

Yes.

Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls.

All Your waves and breakers have swept over me By day, You, O Lord, direct Your love

At night, Your song is with me.

A prayer to You, O God of my life.

Deep calls to Deep.

(adapted from Psalm 42, NIV)