MarilynYocum.com

I JUST PUT a wheeled suitcase in my car
empty
because I know when
I get the call
to say the discharge orders
have been written and signed
she’ll have her things
in bags,

several bags,
cloth and plastic -
one with the name of the rehab facility,
another with the name of the hospital she was in prior,
one or two from the grocery store.
She’s been packing them for days.

And I know that
trying to get her AND the bags
down the hall and out to the car
could be a challenge,
subject to gravity
and prone to collapse
as they all are.

* * *

SEEING a GENTLEMAN
yesterday
escorting a discharged patient
by pushing a wheelchair
and pulling along a wheeled suitcase,
I made note of it,
the suitcase on wheels
for all the belongings that are also being discharged.
Brilliant, that.

I am waiting
and
she is waiting.

We have been waiting a good month,
it could be said,
but the early waiting
was nothing like this waiting.
Waiting with expectancy
it is a very different kind of waiting indeed.
My cell phone is in my pocket.

* * *

Under the heading PATIENT ADVOCACY,
I inquired on Monday, “Any thoughts on when she might be discharged?”

“Are you in a rush to get her out of here?” the nurse asked.

“No, no.
I don’t want her discharged
a moment before she is fully ready to be home again,
but I also don’t want her to linger here
a day more than she needs to.”

The expression “the fullness of time“
came to my thoughts
and has been rolling around ever since.

The fullness of time…
the time set,
the time that allows space
for all that is needed
to be set in place,
the ordained time,

not a moment too early,
not a moment too late.
Does such a time exist
on a clock
or a calendar
even if we aren’t aware of it?

A timely word with the powers-that-be
and things have been set in motion,
things that perhaps would have been in motion anyway,
but now I see them
and I have an expectancy
I didn’t have before.

If you are waiting for something,
Advent is the season for you.
And a talk with the powers-that-be
may do you good,
not that it will
make things happen faster,
but just to be reacquainted with the importance of
the fullness of time.
Peace-giving, that.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
- John 14:27 NIV