The Cat Scan

The Cat Scan

(First I will put some melodic Chopin music on in the background as I describe this moment)

She lays there, her young green eyes darting nervously about the room. I quietly hold her hand and reassure her, that yes, she will be fine.

My dear mother is in for a Cat Scan. Laying on the bed she looks small and thin. I stroke her face and hair. To me she looks both young and ancient. There’s an eternal liveliness to her eyes. I go sit in the hall while she goes through her procedure. It is both completely factual and it is a mystery. Health. 88 years old, soon to be 89. Yes, there she is, laying on the gurney looking so intact, so complete, so fragile and so strong. I marvel at her.

I sit in the neutral hall while the computer voice tells her to breath, or raise her arms or do something else. I sit under a perfect circle of light in this completely neutral environment. The circle of light is calming to me and it mutes my growing apprehension as to what will be found in the cat scan. Under this neutral light I allow meditative thoughts to emerge, to quietly flow while I look ahead.

Of course part of me is scared and wishes to just drift off to some safe fetal position somewhere away from here. But I am called back to the room and there she is, my own dear mother laying there on the white bed. So helpless, so strong, so wise.

The procedure is almost over. I gaze past this moment, past the sterile environment to muse on the richness of my mother's life. We pack up and leave. I hold her arm as we walk together under the calm pool of light into a future of questions and more doctor visits.

Bikkus Cholim ( for an old friend)

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.