Hospital Visits

5/17/09 Hospital Visits There are good hospital visits and those that aren’t so good. This time last week, I was at Baptist Women’s Hospital awaiting the birth of a great niece. Today I was at a different hospital holding my father-in-law’s hand and praying for him as he had just received a rather grim prognosis. Fear of the unknown was somewhat quieted as he was encouraged to “trust an unknown future to an all-knowing God.” Various doctors were in and out all afternoon and more tests and scans were done, charts read and reread and a time of waiting set in---his body seemingly fading but his mind as strong as ever. In that time, I saw him grab the hand of his wife, his Mary, our Mommar, and squeeze it so that she began to relax and feel better. While she might not realize where to go when she walks out of that room, she knows where she is at that moment. I venture to say that she wouldn’t choose to be anywhere else in the world. When he has hold of her hand, as frail as he is, she feels secure. What confidence she has in him to make everything all right for her. There is indeed a security in knowing the one whose hand you hold---sometimes it’s more of them holding yours. I think that in room 551 at St. Francis Hospital, while Grandaddy held Mommar’s hand with his right hand, he was trusting the Lord to hold his other hand and to give him a little more strength, just so he could pass it on to her. As I was leaving, a lullaby played over the hospital intercom---a signal that a baby had just been born. What a way to celebrate life. Even Grandaddy holding on to his wife’s hand was in his own way celebrating the life he has had with her for almost 65 years.