情暖今生The Gift
茹涅·吉爾/Junie Girl
It was well after mid-night, wrapped in my warm fleecy robe I stood silently staring out the ninth floor window of the daunting New York hospital.I was staring at the 59th Street Bridge.It was as sparkling and beautiful as a Christmas tree.New York city has always been special to me; the Broadway theatre, the music, the restaurants—from the deli’s to the Tavern-On-the-Green.“This is what the city is supposed to be about,”I thought, dreading the morning to come and all the uncertainty it held.But the morning did come and at nine a.m.on that March 17th, I was wheeled into an operating room.Eleven hours and forty-five minutes later I was wheeled into a recovery room, and a very few hours after being returned to my own hospital room, I found myself actually on my feet, half walking, half propelled by medical equipment and members of my family.The orders were to walk the length and back of the long hospital corridor.
It was then that I first saw him.I saw him through a haze of drugs, pain and the dreamy unreality that this could be happening to me.He was standing in the doorway of a hospital room.In my twilight, unfocused state I saw him almost as a spirit shape rather than a full blown person.Yet the body language of this shape was somehow sending out sympathy and encouragement to me.
This became my daily routine for the next three weeks.As I gained a little more strength the man would be standing in the doorway, smiling and nodding as I would pass with one or more members of my family.On the fourth week I was allowed to solo up the corridor.As I passed his room, there was my faithful friend in the doorway.He was a slender dark complexioned man.I stopped a minute to chat.He introduced me to his wife, and his son who was lying listlessly in a hospital bed.The next day as I made my scheduled walk, he came out and walked with me to my room.He explained that he and his wife had brought their teenage son to this hospital of hope from Iran.They were still hoping, but things were not going well.He told me of how I had encouraged him on that first dreadful night’s walking tour and how he was rooting for me.For three more weeks we continued our conversations—each giving the other the gift of caring and friendship.He told me of how he enjoyed seeing my family as they rallied around me and I was saddened by the loneliness of that small family so far from home.