By Matthew Menary
I miss my mom. I sometimes go sit in a corridor of the hospital where she died, where long ago she worked, and where she was admitted again and again over the years. I sit on a modernistic, curved couch in a hallway between the lobby and the cafeteria. I sit and stare into space and I listen. I listen to snippets of conversation of the people who pass by going to eat, or going upstairs via the nearby elevator. I stare out the windows into a courtyard at plants, blue skies and statues where people with a lot on their minds can rest and reflect.
As soon as I take my spot, I recall as clearly as I can my mom telling me, “Speak to me,” during the many times when we would sit together. I don’t know if being in proximity to where she spent so much time and where she died could bring me closer to her, but it’s all I’ve got. I sit. I stare. I listen. I try to be aware of the smallest thing in that narrow space. I hope that by creating a stillness, I will find something to say, or I will think of a few words my mom would have said to me. Then, I wait.
Most of what I hear are fragments, many— “Uhhuh.” “Really?” “She said what?” type of blurbs. I usually hear, “Going up or down?” from the people by the elevators. I also frequently hear some form of, “Where’s the lobby at?” There is talk of what to eat, or what the doctor thinks or knows or said. One June 30, three men dressed in green scrubs came down the hallway and one said, “Well, I’m officially working Christmas Day.” A man in another group of three, a woman and two men, said, “I should have made myself more clear. I don’t care what we do— until 3:30!” One day a blonde woman rather energetically told the woman she was walking with, “One of these days I’m gonna have to like say, ‘Do you know how really annoying you are?’ and you know I’ll do it.” Most of what I hear is not profound.
I don’t plan ahead for these visits to the hospital to sit and listen. There is no regular pattern on the calendar for when I go. I don’t even know how many times I’ve gone or how many hours I’ve sat still and passive and waiting. I’ve never heard mom’s voice. I do not expect to. My trips are spurof-the-moment things when I am sad or tired of the world and the people in it. I go when I have to resist an urge to tell someone how annoying they are, because I know that sort of thing never ends well for me. I go when I think I need some short bit of time when I can be sure I will not annoy anyone else.
It is sad to see children, unless I’ve gotten a hint that they are coming to see their new baby sister or brother. I can sometimes tell. The excitement level is high. People are smiling. There are balloons. It is when the kids are sad, crying, or absolutely silent that I know it’s a bad visit. I can never be sure because there is only so much I can learn in the 15 or 20 seconds it takes for our lives to cross before these people turn the corner and disappear forever.
On one visit, late in the day, I had managed to pull myself up a little. My short rest sitting as still as the potted plant beside me had revived me enough that I stood up and resumed my life as an animated being. That was when a father approached, leaning over his daughter at almost 90 degrees to look her directly in the face. As they walked along, this father held his hand on the shoulder of his serious and sad-looking brownhaired girl and he quietly advised her, “We always want to be nice. And we always want to be plainforward and ourselves.”
I don’t know what enormous stresses this family was going through, but I thought that counsel was the best I’d heard in a long time, something anyone could benefit from, something my mom would agree with, and something that I have tried to do myself ever since.