Sitting in a hospital waiting room - when someone you love and care about is behind those doors somewhere - is perhaps one of the most maddening things a human has to endure! We love to be in control (or at least THINK we are) and when someone is wheeled into an operating room with a doctor and his team, the last bit of reserve we might possess just disappears into thin air! My brother had at least a dozen surgeries between the time he was 13 and 16 (prior to his kidney transplant). I had sit in the waiting room with my parents and numerous friends and family for all of those surgeries. None of them were ever easy; though some of them were memorable (for another post down the road).
On a side note, I think one of the most practical thing anyone has ever done for us while we were "living" in a waiting room was my Uncle Jimmy. One day he had come down to visit with us and my brother, and before he left, he emptied his pocket of all his loose change and encouraged those in the room to do the same. Before long, we had at least $20 in change that could be easily and readily used for the hungry vending machines! I have never forgotten that. People have come in and said all kind of things in order to comfort us and show us that they cared. They preached, prayed, cried, read scripture, and expounded on their philosophy of suffering. None of those really moved me more than just someone's "presence" - sitting quietly beside me - or that gesture of emptying of the pockets to make sure we had enough change to get us through the hours and hours and hours of sitting and waiting and hoping. To me it's a modern day rendition of the commandment, "If someone thirsts, and you give them a cup of cold water, you do it in Jesus' name." Giving me change so that I could buy that cold water (or Sundrop :) is the same thing to me!!
As hard as it always was when we waited for my brother to have surgery, the day of my brother's kidney transplant - with a kidney taken from my mother - was the longest and hardest day of my life (up until a few experiences I had as a missionary in Africa). Not only was my brother wheeled away on a sterile white stretcher but also was my precious mom. In order for this "live" (meaning that the donor was a person still alive, instead of someone who had died and had donated his organ) transplantation, my brother was put in one operating room and right next to him (in another operating room) would be my mother. I have no other siblings, so there I sat with my dad and at least two dozen other people. Waiting. Waiting. Smelling the staleness of hospital air. Hearing the talking, but not comprehending. Breathing, but not really using the air. Waiting.
If you know me at all, you'll be surprised when I tell you that I literally sat for six hours and said not a word. One of my "second" daddies sat beside me most of the time and kept patting my leg, bringing me something to drink, but seeming to understand that I could simply not have eaten a bite. It was so long. I thought I would go mad with the thought of it. I remember going back and forth in my mind with the craziest thoughts: who would I want to die if I had to choose? What IF the doctors came out and said that they both had died while in surgery? What IF my brother died anyway - after my mother had done this amazing thing for him? What IF my mother died while giving a kidney but my brother were to live? Could my brother endure life without her and no blame himself? Would I blame him? It's absolutely amazing the thing the human mind can conjure up when put under stress. The scenarios we imagine, the bridges we build, the monsters we devise. It's sad but true that those are the times when every single Bible verse we may have memorized simply dissipates into the stale, antiseptic air we breath in those waiting rooms.
Where is the trust? Where is the realization that God is the ultimate authority - even in those operating room? Why can we not rest in that truth? Ah, the human-ness of us!!
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