All Around
I love the opening scene of the Christmas movie Love Actually (and every scene that follows, let’s be honest) because it so concisely and poignantly expresses the complexity of love by showing what happens every day at the arrival gate at Healthrow Airport. See what I mean?
Though the Cancer Hospital where I work is unlike the arrival gate at an airport in almost every way, I get to see what love looks like when it’s not all rainbows and sunshine, when it’s bad news, and painful procedures. When it’s not “welcome back” but instead “here we go.” I see love is that scared and weak and sick. But that doesn’t make any less powerful. In fact, I think it's the real deal, the meat and potatoes of what it means to love someone. In sickness and in health.
Love is when husbands hand over the phone to their wives when scheduling appointments because “she’s the one who knows what’s going on around here” and when wives ask husbands to get on the phone when calling in for a prescription because “He can remember all those names better than I can.” It’s when I asked for a patient’s birth date and he or she gets it confused with the birth date their spouse. It’s when couples coordinate their appointments for the same day to get in MRI’s and office visits and blood work, and they take turns being the hand holder and the one who needs their hand held. It’s husbands and wives in their twenties and in their eighties pushing their bald spouses in wheelchairs down the hall.
But it's not just sweethearts who show me what love is every day. I talk to relatives and friends, daughters-in-law, and step-parents every day about coordinating appointments, procedure preparation, and where they should park when they get to the hospital. Sometimes they call me “sweetie” and sometimes they frustrated and hang up on me. I am learning to understand that even though there’s all this love pumping through the veins and the hallways of this hospital, there is also anxiety and frustration that comes out in the form of anger. This anger is often misdirected because you can't shout at cancer, but you can shout at me. I try to keep this mind when I am not “feeling the love”—It doesn’t mean it’s not still there.
Today, on Valentine’s Day, as I walk through the halls of a Cancer Hospital past bouquets and balloons, IV’s and surgical masks, I can’t help but hear the smokin’ hot voice of Hugh Grant circa 2003 in the back of my mind: “If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”
Happy Valentine’s Day.
XOXO,
Manda
Though the Cancer Hospital where I work is unlike the arrival gate at an airport in almost every way, I get to see what love looks like when it’s not all rainbows and sunshine, when it’s bad news, and painful procedures. When it’s not “welcome back” but instead “here we go.” I see love is that scared and weak and sick. But that doesn’t make any less powerful. In fact, I think it's the real deal, the meat and potatoes of what it means to love someone. In sickness and in health.
Love is when husbands hand over the phone to their wives when scheduling appointments because “she’s the one who knows what’s going on around here” and when wives ask husbands to get on the phone when calling in for a prescription because “He can remember all those names better than I can.” It’s when I asked for a patient’s birth date and he or she gets it confused with the birth date their spouse. It’s when couples coordinate their appointments for the same day to get in MRI’s and office visits and blood work, and they take turns being the hand holder and the one who needs their hand held. It’s husbands and wives in their twenties and in their eighties pushing their bald spouses in wheelchairs down the hall.
But it's not just sweethearts who show me what love is every day. I talk to relatives and friends, daughters-in-law, and step-parents every day about coordinating appointments, procedure preparation, and where they should park when they get to the hospital. Sometimes they call me “sweetie” and sometimes they frustrated and hang up on me. I am learning to understand that even though there’s all this love pumping through the veins and the hallways of this hospital, there is also anxiety and frustration that comes out in the form of anger. This anger is often misdirected because you can't shout at cancer, but you can shout at me. I try to keep this mind when I am not “feeling the love”—It doesn’t mean it’s not still there.
Today, on Valentine’s Day, as I walk through the halls of a Cancer Hospital past bouquets and balloons, IV’s and surgical masks, I can’t help but hear the smokin’ hot voice of Hugh Grant circa 2003 in the back of my mind: “If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”
Happy Valentine’s Day.
XOXO,
Manda
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| So much is happening in this photo. Most of it is awkward. |
I love this! What a beautiful post! Happy Valentine's Day, Amanda!
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