No good excuse to be unkind.

 Being on a ward with a mixture of kids and adults(Mayo is redoing some floors) is quite interesting.  It’s a great study in human behavior.

There is a new cardiac patient. We’ll call her Sophie. She is crabby, makes a lot of childish noises in her room.  Pushes her call button constantly…okay not constantly but pretty close.  The nurses can never make this little lady happy.  She is just lonely so the nurses stay as long as they can before attending other people. She is unkind to them.  They dread going into this room.

Down the hall there is laughter coming from a room.  He sounds so childlike but chats with a lady in the hall about being from the South.  We’ll call him George.  He walks by occasionally in very snazzy pj’s.  Sometimes, he seems to be in a lot of pain but he always smiles and is kind to the nurses and waves to the other ‘prisoners’.

Kindness always matters.  It’s hard during difficult times…times of Wintering.  For some, being kind is hard all the time.  

I’m sad to report what you probably already guessed…

George with all his love and kindness is 9.

Sophie with her “I’m the most important one here.” attitude and overflowing unkindness, is 75.  Trust me, I asked a nurse.  She should know better.  

It is very hard being here.  Spirits get down.  I have thought about punching the wall.  It’s uncomfortable and no privacy drives some of us nuts.  But!  None of these are a good excuse to be unkind.

Maybe I’m just making amends.  I was so very unkind as a child during Mayo visits, especially surgery visits.  Banshee screams, shoe throwing, hiding in tight places is what I handed out to people who genuinely cared for me and fought for me to survive.

So now I make it a point to ask about my caregivers lives.  I take deep breaths and remove the anger in my heart to push out kindness to the nurses.  It may sound woo woo or something you’d hear at a retreat.  Really though it’s just the most important lesson on being a good human.

Today was a struggle for me to do this.  Hearing for the second day in a row that I could leave and then told nope, never mind made me very angry.  Everyone was VERY cautious coming into my room to tell me why it was a good idea to stay.  I guess they believe in the old saying’Beware of the quiet ones.’.

Although very upset…I even cried in front of people.  I don’t do that,  I knew I could either let this ruin my day and be unkind or just get over it.  I can’t change it anyway.