I was on my way for my first visit with Susan. It was her first full day being home, away from the hospital in seven months. Her primary nurse and medical team at the hospital had requested that we "become acquainted" since we would be located closer to her for minor problems or questions.
She was not exactly the patient I wanted to visit. I wasn't sure how I was going to emotionally deal with this one. She was our daughter's age. It had been predicted the night of her accident that she would never live long enough to get to a major trauma center. But, she did.
I was sorting these thoughts and emotions around in my head and my heart as I drove to her Mom's home. A well-groomed black and silver schnauzer answered the doorbell with barking and bouncing and dancing in circles until Susan's Mom opened the door.
"Come on in! You will have to excuse us today. We are getting adjusted to settling down with hospital equipment, a bed, oxygen, etc. being delivered. We only arrived home a few hours ago and there have been people coming and going, bringing food, delivering medications,...well, you know all this I'm sure. This isn't your first rodeo. Please forgive my rambling and come inside." She pleasantly said.
"Susan Honey, this is the nurse from the agency your doctor called about coming to see us and check on you and getting to know each other. If you two will excuse me I need to get some linens out of the dryer for that hospital bed. We prefer sheets that are soft and pretty. We've had enough of that white and scratchy kind!"
So over the next hour I explained what we would be doing each visit, how we could be of assistance to Susan and her Mom, that we would check her vital signs and educate her about her medications, safety measures,...the routine introduction. Susan smiled and nodded and was polite. But her eyes would really light up when her little brother, about three years old, appeared in the room and would crawl up as close to her as he could to give her a kiss and then she would bend over slightly and pull him near and air kiss him too. He behaved as if his sister had always been in a wheelchair, dancing around it and touching her ever so often to 'connect' again with an exchange of gentle hugs.
The noise level was up there with the barking, screaming back and forth of family members and visitors, and the delivery men. I was thinking it may have been this noisy before the accident, with a not too extraordinary family full of love and life just living this time and space call Today...Now.
It's true. We aren't guaranteed with the birth certificate of our children that they will outlive us, always be healthy or happy, and become adults with the careers we'd hoped for or dreamed about.
Several weeks later Susan's Mom was visiting with me over paperwork and ice tea. "Becki, it is good to make time to rock a baby without hurrying, answer pleas for another story with a smile, go outside and play with the toddlers and not worry about when we will get the laundry done. Whether they are fighting an illness, an injury, or a heartache or even if they are fit as a fiddle, they all need to be reminded of how precious they are to us. And that they are here with great purpose. No one is an accident. I'm not sure that we can hug them too much."
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