London Hospital: “God will Bless you if you Help Me!”
Around 6 am another elderly woman in a wheel chair was settled into a bed just to the right of mine. (Our four bed room was filling up.) She was apparently dying from a serious illness. Covered in a burka and speaking with a thick accent, we knew she was from one of the middle eastern countries. Since several people accompanied her into the hospital, I imagined she’d have family members by her side. That was not the case. She was just as alone as our other roommate. Every so often, we’d hear her moans. After a few hours of suffering, she tried to get the nursing staff to help her. No one came.
She began crying out over and over: “Help me. Somebody help me. God will bless you if you help me.” In her last days, no one was at her side assisting through the maze of absent doctors; overworked, understaffed nurses; and a medical system designed to minimize rather than administer care.
More information came to light about the “roommate” across from me. The doctor sent her home early. That’s how socialized medicine works. She needed longterm care but to receive it, she had to relinquish her home and all her possessions. Her husband died decades earlier. Her daughter was uninterested. We were never clear about a son. She recalled WWII and mumbled something about a pension. The hospital fed her, made her feel loved. “I don’t want to be alone” she’d mumble off and on.
With two elderly women struggling in our room–one to my right, and one directly across–we were kept busy. Brian rang the attendant buzzer for the lady beside me. The nurse finally appeared. Slightly agitated that the call was for another patient, she administered aid to soothe the woman’s pain. She quieted. Brian and I spoke off and on to the woman across from me.
The words spoken by the priest a day earlier came to mind. God commands children to honor their mothers yet none were present for either of these two women. Is this what God wanted me to understand? Was there a reason enough to justify abandonment? Does God even allow reasons? This one commandment from God himself is the first to come with a blessing and a promise–a long life follows honoring one’s earthly parent:
EXODUS 20:12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”
DEUTERONOMY 5:16 “Honor your Father and mother as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”
EPHESIANS 6:2 “Honor thy father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise.”
No honoring or love, no caring or obedience. My heart aches even more than my arm. Where are the children?
Instead of being released; the doctors moved me onto another nursing floor–one specifically for orthopedics. A specialist would look at my arm during a surgical procedure to see every angle of it by using a special CT or MRI. If it were determined there was no need of additional surgery to repair the arm, a soft cast would be placed on it.
God has not yet said, “No don’t go” This diversion has a purpose, of that I’m sure!
