A Hospital Visitation
by
Anna McDonald
Reaching out his hand to say good-bye, he held my hand in a firm grip. No words were spoken. He needed oxygen for his laboured breathing. In that moment I was transported to the past that had been ours in friendship. It was a year ago that my visit found him in a wheelchair — triple heart by-pass surgery. I remember him saying, "I am hungry. Do you have a chocolate bar?" "No, I don't. But I do have a few Trebor hard candies." That would do. It seemed a strange request to come from him. But in illness, time for niceties are over. At this second visit, he recalled my first. A year had gone by. His mind was still very alert for he remembered that visit better than I. We had been locked in that hospital room because the fire alarm had gone off. It startled me so. Then there followed that eerie feeling as the heavy door closed automatically. It was a strange visit. It was the visit that linked us with our past.
Yes, fifty-five years had passed since we were both members of that young people's society called Luther League. We reminisced how we had enjoyed the same Luther League sports events in summer, the wiener roasts in fall, snow tramps in winter. In those few visitation minutes we had summed up our lives by recognizing it was the nurture of our loving parents and our faith that had carried us through the war years and beyond. He had gone overseas and became a high-ranking officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force, while I went as a church worker among the munitions workers living in new areas in the United States. That same faith had helped us in our respective married lives. Now it was sickness that brought us to meet again.
In those last few minutes of this third visit, his grip made me see our lives as if time stood still. No words he spoke. The grip of his hand said, "Thank you, Anne. Life has been good. God bless you."
As I looked at him lying there, I returned his thank-you with a smile. There was a smile on his suffering face, the same smile he always had those many years ago. In my mind's eye, I now saw not an old gray-haired man, but the happy smile of the young man I knew years ago.
The next morning, he breathed his last. His living had ended.