During one of my agency nursing periods, I was sent to a rest home in a town I knew well.
During the medication round in which I was giving medication to a lot of people who couldn’t communicate any more, I came to a room with a misshapen man in it. He was shrunken into a tiny ball in the bed, obviously bed bound. He had had several severe strokes and looked as though he couldn’t communicate. He would be easy to overlook or seen as no different to the many other people I had encountered on my round.
I spoke with him as I spoke with every person in the rest home as if they were still fully themselves. He responded which was a surprise. His reply to me was painfully slow but clear and I could feel he appreciated my enquiry as being genuine and not rote. I could also feel that despite his circumstances he had a very strong sense of self. It then dawned on me that I knew him, not personally, but remembered him from many years ago as a well-known and well-respected figure about the town. It was a shock to see the reduction in his physical form, making him almost unrecognisable.
Over the number of days that I worked there we spoke more and I enjoyed the richness in each opportunity. He was a light within what looked like a fairly miserable existence, and I came to see that he was loved and respected by the staff there, though they didn’t have much time to interact with him in a deeper way. He had not lost any of his mental capacity nor the hugeness of his heart. The ‘overcoat’ he wore, his body, may have been at or past its use by date but his eyes said it all, his essential being was alive and still fully present.
He had had some serious tragedies in his life and shared these with me; losing one child in a freak accident and another to cancer, losing his wife to cancer also, and whom he spoke of with great love and respect. So much was communicated through his eyes without need of words but words though slow also came. Whilst sharing about the beauty of his wife he said “You have the same thing my wife had, the same eyes, you are open to people like she was.” He said their maxim had been “to live in a way that you don’t hurt anybody” and shared many other wise things it was a joy to hear coming so incongruously from his wizened up and virtually useless body.
He reiterated for me yet again that nothing and nobody can be dismissed. The picture before me will oftentimes be nothing like what my mind might decide about it. Nothing is as it seems.
Observe, give things space and magic is often revealed.