Michelle at Quantum Theology writes recently of her experience of waiting.
This afternoon I waited and remembered and found that waiting hard, as Michelle found waiting hard.
I came home from work mid afternoon to find Small, who had been perfectly well when I left in the morning, was shivering in bed running a high fever. I suspected either malaria as we have just been in Kariba, or pneumonia as he had a chest infection last week. Either was bad, so I scooped him up and took him off to our family practitioner's practice. As we didn't have an appointment we had to wait for a doctor to fit us in between booked patients.
I sat and waited in the small ward with Small shivering as the fever raged. Small was due on 4th July but arrived unexpectedly on 3rd May. This premature birth gave rise to some serious health difficulties and for seven years I spent a great deal of time waiting in this small ward. I looked at the familiar 1930's ceiling moulding and the beautiful art deco door handles and reread the posters that are now 17 years old and thought of the hours I spent waiting for Small to fight his way out of life threatening illness. And that helpless waiting was hard.
Yet I also recalled the enormous support and kindness I had received in this room. Doctors and nurses who cared for my small son and for me, his often overwhelmed mother, who offered small acts of compassion to ease the tension of waiting. As then so today. A nurse arrived with a cup of tea as we waited for bloods and chest films to come back. It turns out that he has both pneumonia and malaria. Once again I waited as the health professionals strung drips and fed him full of drugs and monitored his vitals.
Now I wait and hope as I have done numerous times before that his own internal strength will enable him to bounce back from this double illness.
But the waiting is hard.
