Fragile

I just sat with one of my friends in the CCU waiting room.  Her dad, my pastor, is in.  He's bleeding internally, and they can't find the source to stop it.  He's hemorrhaging so fast that they've given him four pints of blood so far, and that's still not enough.  He's stable right now, but they have to scope him again tomorrow to try to find the hole and finally stop the bleeding for good. 

My friend has been through some terrifying moments since last night when her father collapsed and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance, but she's holding up.   That's what you do in these situations.  You "hold up."  You sit in various rooms you don't really see, consume food you don't really taste, say things you don't really remember, and wait for the next update. Your heart stops with every ring of the CCU phone, and you pray, pray, pray that your doctor does not walk in the door unless you are looking for him/her. 

I did what I could do, sat with her, talked, relived silly stories to take her mind off it, all things she's done for me when I've been the one on those low-backed and supremely comfortless couches in that self-same room.  I stayed for a little more than an hour, I think, would have stayed longer, but I'd ridden in with my father, and he was ready to go home.  I know what happens when the distraction disappears.  The possibilities close in again.  Your brain cuts on again, and you wait.  And wait.  And wait. And think.

It's the worst part of any crisis, really.  Those moments when all the frantic action is done and there is absolutely nothing you can do to help or harm, when all your intelligence, all your skill, all that you are, personally, is useless to help somebody you love.  If you're a Type-A, hands-on, leadership type (and she and I are much from the same mold), you long to be able to do something, anything, roll a bandage, hold a bedpan....something....anything...so you don't feel so helpless.  So you don't feel like the whole thing is just spiraling completely out of control. 

And you know that it is.  Your higher mind knows that the situation is totally beyond you, maybe even beyond the people in the white coats and scrubs who surround you, beyond anybody but the hands of God Almighty.  But that action would help, would give you at least the illusion of something like control....  It's hard to be reminded of how fragile we are, how little we can really do when the chips are down and the situation is at its worst.  I will never forget that grey shadow on my own father's face as we raced in to the emergency room on that June afternoon.  I know my friend is never going to forget holding her own father waiting for the ambulance to arrive, wondering....  

Once you've had that brush with the horrible, terrible, shattering fragility of somebody you love and survived it, you just can't look at things the same way again.  Priorities change.  Humility comes.  Your own place in the universe shifts.  You both hold them closer and learn to let them go a little.  You learn that you're not in control of everything even if you try to be, and that sometimes things can come out okay even if you can't do a damn thing about any of it. 

And if loss comes, there are lessons to be learned from that, too.  Lessons about endings and pain and how we can pick the bits and pieces of ourselves up, how to maintain, how to remember, how to keep, how to let go....

I am praying for my friend and her father.  I will do whatever I can to help her out during this time.  I hope he's well again soon.  I would have wished for her that this time had never come, but now that it's here, I hope that all the things that come from it are good things, unexpected blessings, and that none of the more painful things that come from these brushes with fragility have to come now.