I Am A Human Being - Awakening My Compassion

My mother has been a resident of her Rehabilitation Health Care Center for over 5 weeks now.  I am usually there once a day for a couple of hours to help her pass the time and to help resolve any issues that may be cropping up...and they do!  It can be as simple as fixing the phone cord, so she can reach it if it rings, to asking if her night caregiver can be changed so she isn't put to bed at 5 pm!  Each day she asks to be taken out of her room to see something other than her four familiar walls. Except for the 3 hours when she is in the Physical Therapy room, she sits in her room, captive to the wheel chair she is still unable to navigate on her own.  I ask others to bring her to the activity room for various events and sometimes they remember and do so, and sometimes they don't. So, when I am there, we walk the building.

After 5 weeks faces start to become familiar.  Residents sit in the hallways, facing out to whomever walks by,  their eyes watching to see...Will someone notice me?  Will someone speak to me?  A simple "Hello" or "Good Morning" lights up a face and after a while, they will smile first as we walk by and speak to us.

While outside on the patio I try to start up conversations with the other residents so Mom will learn to put some names with the faces and get involved in some social interaction.  We have met Frank and Dorothy, a married couple who are short-term residents. One is recovering from surgery and the other from a stroke he sustained while his wife was in the hospital for the surgery.  They do not share a room since men and women are in separate rooms but they sit together on the patio.  We have met Julianne, a feisty Latina woman, who is a recovering from back surgery. We have met Jack, a long-term resident who reads daily...the Economist or the Foreign Affairs magazine.

Sometimes we get a glimpse of their former lives.  We have Eric, a former classical singer, who at the drop of a hat with begin to sing his favorite songs...especially "Old Man River" from the musical "Showboat"...in his deep, rich, strong bass voice.  We talk to Mr. Duffy, a former WWII veteran who served in Germany and who says he doesn't know why they won't let him have more than a small plastic cup of his red wine in the evening.  One thing they all have in common is that they would rather be home.

I look at these people and wonder where my life's path will take me.  I am sure none of them imagined they would one day be residents here.  The care they receive is very good and the staff is compassionate and friendly.  But our human needs for connection are so core to our well-being and when we are vulnerable the need for acknowledgement seems to scream out.  The gift to me in this is that I am learning to pay attention more...to get out of my own head and see those around me.  I am drawn to the residents and in the process I feel more in touch with others.  I feel a rush of compassion spring from my own heart and that feeling of actually "being more human" is a gift to ME!

After a couple of hours, I walk briskly back to my parked car, aware that my body continues to be reliable and is still doing it's job, and I whisper a "Thank you" to it. When I leave, I take my concerns for my mother home with me...but I also take the faces of the others.  And in my head the refrain of Eric's song is echoing in my mind:

"But I am weary, and sick of tryin', 

I'm tired of livin', but scared of dyin', 

that Ol Man River, he just keeps rollin' along..."