At a CIDNY writing workshop we gather together to write in a supportive environment. When we are about to begin our writing the workshop leader, Avra, gives us a 'prompt' (a few key words to start our writing). We have 20 minutes to write. The 'prompt' for what follows was: “On a scale of one to 10..."
A table, a chair, alone
"Most importantly, the value of home health care lies chiefly in the social relationships between caregivers and recipients. Physical care sustains our biological existence as human beings, but caring
relationships maintain our humanity." Deborah Stone, "Reframing Home Health-Care Policy"
How to value what we, you, and I cannot see? If it happens that way to you, can the same thing happen to me? If it happens to me could it happen to you?
It was a warm summer day yet the hospital room seemed so cold. So big, too big for one person. A concrete floor. A bright light. Sunlight streaming through one relatively small window.
A table, a chair, alone.
As I walked into the room I saw Dorothy as she looked out over the
edge of the bed at the floor.
"Help me."
"Help me."
"Please, help me."
It was only me, unseen, but I had heard her voice, her plea, her cry.
"I'm here," I said. "It's Joey."
I didn't say, but I meant: "You don't have to feel helpless now."
"I want to get off the bed," she said.
The tubes going in and the tubes going out. Where was the helper to help her, to help her to cope, to help her to get off the bed?
Was it necessary? Could it be done? Was it worth helping an old lady after surgery?
What does it cost to help an old lady? How much hope is lost in the world by not helping her?
If you cast hopelessness in to the world how much will the ripple effect change the life of those it reaches? How much hopelessness creates despair?
Dorothy leaned out over the edge of the bed:
Where am I now?
How can I get my life back?
Who will help me?
Who knows who I am?
What can we do?
What was she given? Without the reflection of another person, would there be life after an accident? Will only half of life be given back now, given up to all those given something?
On a scale of one to 10, the first parts, the one to five, was done, was begun, but on this scale: 6 to ten gives back our humanity.
On a scale of one to ten, if she was given five, not to lose the five, she needed six to 10. For, as Dorothy said at her birthday party, "The kindest gift you can give to an old person is to let them know you remember them."
But to give that, to restore our humanity, to heal, was to fulfill the meaning of our lives...To be only onesid(e(ed)) was to now be half-hearted for an old person wanting to be whole again, a person.
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