Day 7 - In Hospital - Anywhere but here

You know one of the things I find really hard when we are away, life goes on at home, I may not be there but when I do come home, time has passed. My friends keep having play dates, kids go to school, bills still arrive, time passes and I know life has to go on but it is still hard not to be present. For a period of time my life is confined to hospital grounds where there is no real night and day, it is defined into shifts, hoping for a nurse with understanding and compassion, these are the things that dictate the mood for the day, making it easier to cope or crash. It is people like the lady at the hospital cafe who provides polite conversation bringing familiarity to the day (particularly when she has know me since I was pregnant), the cleaner who is thoughtful when your daughter is sleeping and she is vacuuming the room. It is the social worker who comforts the ever falling tears and the pastoral care worker who offers a pray of comfort and strength. The moment I find comforting in a strange way,  is visiting the cafe in the maternity hospital, watching the babies and their families leave. They look so joyful and happy and I cannot lie in that I imagine myself and wonder what it is like to hold your baby moments after he/she is born or to have family visit but I see their joy and I escape for a while and Faith loves watching the babies and people too. It helps both of us.

Beside me a mother has a heart felt conversation with her daughter, I can't see them but I hear the tears trickle  down their faces, my heart hurts for their pain whatever it may be. In a week we have seen above 8 families come and go in our room and being in such quarters you hear things, things you sometimes don't want to hear and there is pain that is far deeper than physical pain and may not be able to be healed here. Sadness lingers in people's hearts here, we are all here for a reason whether we want to be or not. There are kids who come here regularly and know the routine,  their are newbies who will come and go and forget those they met and maybe should have learnt something from and lives traveled. Then there is us, who come from a regional area and are sometimes lost in this big place and are trodden on, hurt and feel lost ourselves, we feel we are failing and falling and there is no one to catch us but somehow someway, we keep pushing on through this real life night mare and come out the other side hoping that we find our normality again.