As someone with a chronic illness
I needed to cultivate patience
From the beginning of the perpetual diagnosis
To the endless minutes, hours, days, months, and years of
Waiting
Patience is waiting…
Waiting to go on the UNOS list
Waiting for the beeper to alert me to
A future of waiting
Waiting in waiting areas and hallways
Waiting on exam tables
Waiting for teams of doctors, nurses, residents, social workers
Their voices hushed
“It is day 7 for patient, Coleman, Lerita”
Waiting in freezing cath labs
Waiting for warm blankets
Waiting to be called for the next peering into my body
Sounds waves of my heart, x-rays of my lungs
Enlarged heart masking the exhausted gasping into breathlessness
Anxious waiting by the phone only to hear
“You’re in rejection. We will increase your medications
Please report to the clinic next Wednesday at 7:30 am to repeat your biopsy…”
Waiting to be home again, really home
With no threat of a return to
Beeping monitors, early morning blood draws
3 am awakenings to a cold x-ray plate poked behind my back
Relentless repeats of Law & Order playing on the TV perched in front of my hospital bed
Sweet young people shaking me from stolen rest to check my vitals
Waiting to sleep in my own bed
To sit across from my husband at my table, in my kitchen with colorful wall paper
To eat my own food on my pretty plates at any time I want
Not 8 am, 12 pm, and 5 pm with eggless eggs, cold toast, too much jello, turkey and gravy
A dose of evening meds with stale crackers doused down with ice chipped water
Yes patience, not seemingly a gift at first
But earned on the path to a recovered verve and a gradual spiritual awakening
Which comes only through waiting and waiting and waiting…
Where are you on the journey to patience, to learning the balance between taking charge at every step and surrendering, receiving the gifts that only waiting can provide? Like a train stop on the road to a new inner destination, how is patience being nurtured in you? How is patience working to unearth more of the Peace and Joy in your heart?
