Mother walked through the door to the other side, into the gaping mouth of the oncology wing. It sang persistent high pitched sterile notes. I waited for a long time in a tastefully boring room with padded hardback chairs, outdated magazines, and the television set on mute. Get comfortable, the room seemed to say. But not too comfortable.
I already knew Brad and Angie’s wedding plans. QVC featured yet another garish piece of jewelry. The Butterfly Eternity Pin. Now you can grace your knitting circle in style, decked out in geriatric bling. Speaking of geriatrics, I was surrounded by exactly the kind of old people who bought expensive QVC jewelry. A woman, perhaps in her seventies- slim, spritely, and oh so talkative- flashed her gleaming teeth around the room. I understood of course. People like her, people who wore slacks and cardigans even in the summer, did not worry about whether or not they can afford expensive anesthesia. They do not have to decide between two sick family members. Which one can we afford? Which disease is a bigger emergency?
There were more of them. All matching the beige room. So very taupe. I wondered if the kind of success these people possessed in their old age had numbed them to universally human understanding of suffering. They scattered about the room. Some nodded grimly to one another. Others congregated and gossiped in knowing whispers. A wave of morbid camaraderie permeated the area and suddenly it wasn’t quiet or somber at all. A fat orderly wheeled some shriveled man out into the room. He clutched a plastic cup full of apple juice, probably, and raised it to the room. L’chaim! To life!
I waited for a long time.
lost in xanadu 