It's winter and here I am at Abbott Hospital again.It smells just as I remember and I know my way around. I hardly need to ask for help. There have been so many times and so many visits.
Today I am here visiting an old friend who I have not seen for years. I heard through the grape vine that he was in the hospital after major surgery. Ostomy and colonoscopy.Long words that mask a very long condition for him.
I think I've been in this room before, or have I? All the rooms blend into one long memory.
There he is, tubes and bandages.It's been a long road for him. We connect at once and regale each other with true tales and philosophical ramblings that come to the crossroads of tears and laughter. It's easy to go down either road. The road to laughter is wet with tears and the tearful road makes us really crack some good jokes.
Life has handed him these complexities and it's been tough. He is no stranger to pain and pain is his companion.
Yet he laughs and we make bad jokes.
Bikkur Cholim is the hebrew word for the mitzvah of visiting the sick. There is the feeling that through visiting the sick one can take away one sixtieth of their illness.
I enter his room feeling overwhelmed by the problems of my life. Family, finances, future...what? what? what? I ask.
I leave feeling light and happy. Somehow my problems have been put into perspective and I feel like I have wings.
There is a mystical light that shines through our most difficult situations. It is not easy to find, but it is there. It is like the streetlight on a snowy night, shining out and illuminating the hidden spiral of insight traced in the snow. You have to really squint to seet it...It is so hard to see, but just look, it's there.
You really can walk that inner road, yes, you can reach that inner destination. Just look, it's there.
Difficult moments have their own brightness and illumination. Not by the light of day, but the hidden light of intuition and insight. Look up. Look in. It is there.
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