All of a sudden I find myself making trips to hospitals. Visits, if you will.
I don’t like going to hospitals, I feel a certain uneasiness, discomfort of sorts. Insecure perhaps? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, I just don’t like going. This state is compounded by having to go visit someone in a hospital setting. Maybe it brings the insecurities closer to home?
In some ways I feel I’m bothering the people I’m visiting. What could I possibly say or do that would help them? I’ll go and live a few awkward moments, having made no real difference. But then I realized that there’s a massive problem with this type of thinking, this logic is flawed somewhere. I don’t have proof, so you’ll have to chance upon it yourself.
I realized this and I said to myself, “You dumbass, someone is sick, someone is not feeling well and all you can think about it how uneasy it will make you feel? When did this become about you? asshole… get over yourself.”
When you have the opportunity to go visit, you always go. There are no ifs, ands or buts. You do what you have to, you do what it takes. You cross all the ts, you dot all the is, you cross all the seas and you travel as many miles. You do what it takes, you always go.
I really realized this last year, when my brother-in-law was hospitalized due to a procedure he had to go through. My mom said we should go visit, but I was reluctant. I figured that there are already plenty people there, we’ll just crowd things up further. They’re already worried, and now they’ll have to worry about us, about where we’ll stay, about the food, about transportation. We’re adding to their worry. This all makes logical sense from some angle, but again, the logic is flawed.
We ended up going, leaving home early in the morning, around 3AM. Driving across the border, boarding the Buffalo to New Jersey flight, I was in the flawed mindset. Wondering whether we should really be doing this. “What will I say? What will I do?”. On the way back, my mindset was different (we took taxis for transportation, ate at the hospital cafeteria and returned at the end of the day). It doesn’t matter what you say, it doesn’t matter what you do. Just be there. Talk about the weather, talk about sports, talk about the price of tomatoes, or just say nothing. Simply occupy space.
It’s not as if I no longer feel uneasy, I do. But I have to subdue that. We all do.
I keep reminding myself: you don’t have to do anything, just occupy space. But always, always, always go. You always go.