I’m sitting in an emergency room, watching the 2am bustle of the injured, ill, and diseased. Ridiculous as it may be, I often forget about how many people there are in the vicinity of my little world – and how close we all are on the equalizing planes of life and death. Yes, there’s fancy food and fast food, and yes, Los Robles hospital is quite a bit nicer with its bigger rooms than Alta Bates. But emergency rooms….
A few hours ago I let myself get caught up in dire abstractions of self and social pressures; seeking the bubble reputation in the mouth of a cannon I created (it was as ridiculous as that sentence sounds). Then my friend asked me to drive her to the emergency room. And I remembered that life goes on regardless, and… it’ll end regardless. #realitycheck -> what’s really important?
One of the nurses ran out to Jack-in-the-Box to grab food and asked the security guard at the counter if he wanted anything.Ron said he wanted a hamburger and large fries. It’s also his 60th birthday (and his anniversary!). I told him he should have asked for balloons too. He said it was okay and that his family was going to throw a huge fuss over him later. He also told me, after he’d listened to the loud, racist ranting of an 80 year-old alcoholic (who broke his thumb coming out of a bar) for some length of time, that the amount of good things that came – like hamburgers – far outweighed the things that could drag down a person. Ron crossed himself when he placed his hamburger order, and told me, “good things come from all angles.”
That’s important stuff.
