Hospital Vigil

While doctors operate, striving to save your life, I walk a windowless corridor —no clocks, surely past midnight—find the neurosurgery waiting room, open the door and stop, ambushed by aromas of Sunday dinner. A family eats, rosary beads slid wordlessly, chairs and loveseats pulled around a table spread with fried chicken in a bucket, quarts of slaw, baked beans, mashed pot atoes. Plastic cutlery and napkins sealed in packets like surgical instruments. A stranger offers me a paper plate, blank as a communion wafer, inviting me to sit down with them, break bread, pray this picnic won’t become a wake.
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research