The hospital room was dark. Visiting hours after my back surgery were over, and Ray was by then home. I realized then that I was soaking wet in the ice water that melted from the pack they had put under my back. The sheets, blanket, pillowcase, and my hospital gown were drenched, and I was inconsolably miserable.
I pushed the button for the night nurse, whose station was across from my room. Being “a prince of a boy” still at 76 I waited. Five minutes, 10 minutes, fighting back tears, I called again. A voice came over the p.a. system, “This is your nurse. What do you want?” It was 10 minutes more before she opened the door, turned on the lights, and surveyed the situation.
“You wouldn’t let your grandfather lie in ice water for 30 minutes the night after his back surgery,” I said, uncharacteristically. Mr. Rogers doesn’t complain.
“What’s the problem?”
In the time it took me to initially call and for this woman to put me in dry linen, I felt alone in a way I don’t ever remember feeling before. I drifted in a black hole, panicky, disoriented, dependent, and disconnected to any family, friends, spirits, or years of spiritual practice.
I’m home and only now able to get enough past my shame, anger at myself, and ongoing tears of deep sorrow to pull together meaningful sentences. My anger at the first night nurses was gone by the time I got dry again. What has gnawed at me is my inability to understand these fearful feelings and to describe them in less platitudinous ways than I have offered to others in similar circumstances. Aware of my pain, a well-intentioned dear friend reminded me that the same life flows through us all. Your pain is my pain. That is cold comfort when you can’t fall asleep until 4:15 a.m.
I haven’t wanted to write about my experiences and feelings because I haven’t had it in me to acknowledge with gratitude advice that I’m certain is wise, but not helpful to me at the moment. My world is filled with you, extraordinarily kind people, many of whom have had life experiences far more challenging to their identity than my own. My role has been played out by hundreds of thousands of people before me who have been confronted with the same dark night of the soul.
“You’re not special, Brian.”
I know there are important life lessons weaved through this tapestry of pain, fear, isolation, frustration, and bewilderment. I had a couple of moments of losing composure and control while in the hospital that I want to process. “How could Brian McNaught lose his way?”
“But where were you, God, when I felt so alone?” I know, but I didn’t feel the answer.
You can answer those questions for yourself, but not for me. I know that when the anesthesia finally leaves my system, I get help falling asleep, and the pain is gone it will be easier to understand and communicate wisely. Not yet.
