August 6, 2009
Sometimes you get sick and you don't get better - that's when life is short in its longest days. - John Mellencamp
Not too long ago, I listened to Fresh Air host Terry Gross interview John Mellencamp. He shared a story about the lyrics to The first song on the album, "Longest Days." He muses that it came to him one morning, as a complete thought. He quotes his grandmother who in her last days explains her life perspective with him. She dies later and in his somber, rebellious manner, he made this perspective into a line in a song.
I think about the contradiction. About the amount of waiting and long minutes that pass between arrival at the emergency room and the talk with the doctors to find out what is happening with a loved one. Even after diagnosis, the following days are long and filled with more waiting, even when the family laments about how short life is.
I think now about how my life has very long days and how my time with the Chaplain Interns has been too short. They leave next week and I will miss them!
How is life short for you, even in the longest days?
Soft shoes pad through halls
ReplyDeletePainted with disinfectant and the echos
of orders and discussions and all manner of wheels and Code
Word emergencies and bland foods.
Life becomes a series of directions to room numbers and opaque doors.
One cannot drape love about the neck
As a stethoscope,
wings and halos
would hide faith and courage.
The doors open inward to Christ; she prays at the boundary between
life and His Light.
God Bless You Sis