Returning to the Hospital after 3 years.

 

The Inner Labyrinth of Time and Memory

Returning to the Hospital after 3 years

Last Post October 2020 during the Pandemic

So here I am in a waiting room on the first floor

No one else is waiting, 

but I've been waiting...

waiting fortime to pass 

all these long 3 years

so that I could return.

My last blog entry is October 2020.

It was two weeks ago I came back for an

interview for the hospital Facebook page.

I felt a deep longing well up within me

and now I am back.

No one waits for me at Hennepin Healthcare these days

I don't have a badge to get in the side door and scoot up the elevator

to Cardio Renal where all 7 feet of my late husband Josh lays stretched

out on the bed with its extender.

Josh is long gone now.

I do not have to rush to see him 

to intercede for his

abruptness with staff 

or double check his oxygen levels.

My brother is not hovering by the locked psych door waiting

for me to come in and play Scrabble with him. We would play as he sat

there in his regulation rust brown outfit the patients wear.

Now I simply go to the coffee shop and draw those I meet

empathizing with their stories of struggle that mirror my own.

We who "have been through the Storm!!"

We who wondered when the hardships and craziness would end.

and how we marveled at our Resilience and holding onto it 

with desperation and hope, 

then tucking it in our back pocket for use 

the next time everything fell apart.

I walk and muse along the long familiar corridors 

without fear of falling on ice.

As I walk 

I remember what was...

And move ahead into what is...