Christmas eve

Imagine that tonight is Christmas eve. 

Outside, the sun is setting under a sky that could pass for cotton candy.The air is frigid but still. The street is busy with people hurrying home to begin celebrating the holiday. You, yourself, are looking forward to getting home to a crackling fire on the hearth and a traditional Christmas eve meal. The kids are home from college. Their gifts are wrapped and piled under the tree. You breathe a sigh of relief and gratitude.

"I will honor Christmas in my heart

and try to keep it all the year."

~Charles Dickens~

It was a busy day. Among the patients you admitted through the emergency room were a child with asthma complicated by fever and pneumonia, an elderly gentleman who fractured his hip when he slipped on the ice outside his garage, an OD, and an out-of-state trucker with chest pain and an abnormal EKG. Orders have been written, tests scheduled, and rounds finished. Your patients are settled for the night. Your job for the day is done. It’s time to go home.

Except that part of you never goes home.

You can't forget the expression on the child’s face when he learned he would be spending Christmas in the hospital. He’d asked for a blue bicycle and he couldn’t stop crying because he wouldn’t be there to get it…and he wasn’t well enough to ride it, anyway.

You recall discussing her husband’s injury with the elderly man’s wife. She would be alone for Christmas now, and for weeks to follow. She couldn’t imagine how she would manage by herself.

The OD was not accidental. You are reminded of the most recent studies debunking the long-perpetuated myth that suicide rates peak around the holidays. In fact, suicides reach a statistical nadir in December. Still, opioid contamination keeps no schedule and leaves no clues. It will be a long vigil for this victim’s family overnight.

You learn that the trucker’s family is stuck at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport because of blizzard conditions. They wonder if he will survive this latest heart attack. Will they get there in time?

It’s Christmas eve. You get to go home. Your patients don’t.

"When you're sick, 

it's nice to know there are people

who await your recovery

as they might a holiday."

~Anton Chekhov~

This is a bi-polar time of the year, a time that highlights the irreconcilable discrepancies, emotional extremes, and divergent realities that prevent some people from celebrating the spirit of the holidays. There is poverty in contrast to wealth, sorrow instead of joy, cruelty as opposed to compassion, and of course, illness instead of health.

For those of us in the medical field who are taking our patients’ medical histories, exploring their symptoms, and fielding their pain when the rest of the world is celebrating joy and peace, it is a bittersweet season. Many of our patients will experience pain rather than comfort, grief instead gratitude, anger as opposed to joy, and anguish instead of peace. It won’t be merry or bright at all. They will be stuck with it…and in many ways, so will we.

"Illness is the night-side of life,

A more onerous citizenship.

Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship

in the kingdom of the well

and in the kingdom of the sick."

~Susan Sontag~

If Christmas eve with your family is happy, loving, and peaceful, I wish you a merry one.

If not, I wish you hope. Courage. Friendship. Beauty. Time. Snow if you like it…sunshine if you don’t.

Dickens could have been describing Christmas eve when he wrote in “A Tale of Two Cities":

"It was the best of times,

it was the worst of times...

it was the season of light,

it was the season of darkness,

it was the spring of hope,

it was the winter of despair."

It was Christmas eve.

jan



choosing the path that feeds your soul

Have you ever walked into a bookstore or library and pulled some random book off the shelf just because the title interested you or the cover attracted you? And then, when you got home and started to read it, you discovered to your surprise that it was exactly what you needed at that moment in your life. Something inspiring, or validating, or transformative. You were stunned by the wisdom of the author's words. You fell in love with his prose. You wanted to learn more.

This happened to me recently. I picked up Stephen Cope's book, "The Great Work of Your Life--A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling." On page 9, he describes what can happen when we hit a crossroads in our lives. Perhaps we lose a loved on, or lose our job, or retire, or divorce. The last child leaves home. Illness strikes. Everything changes. We can't see the way forward because we have no idea where we want to go or what we want to do. Everything that is familiar, and secure, and predictable shifts. Cope writes:

"They came to this crossroads and found themselves rooted there, with one foot firmly planted on each side of the intersection. Alas, they never moved off the dime. They procrastinated. Dithered. Finally, they put up a folding chair smack in the middle of that crossroads and lived there for the rest of their lives. After a while, they forgot entirely that there even was a crossroads...forgot that there was a choice."

That's what happened to me. At some point I found myself contemplating which rocking chair I should set up in the middle of that intersection, unable to decide which road I should take going forward, and whether it was worth the effort.

"When faced with a decision,

choose the path that feeds your soul."

~Dorothy Mendoza Rowe~

Cope's book led me to tackle this stack of books:

...and this stack:

...several of which I read years ago and intend to revisit, as well as several I recently read cover to cover. Twice. In rapid succession.

Why? Because Buddhist psychology and practice fascinate me. Because the authors are brilliant and authentic. The writing is fluent and lyrical. Which makes me a bit jealous. It discourages me from beginning something new at this late hour in my own life. But it also inspires me...

...the same way I am inspired by a friend who was recently invited to display one of her paintings at an art show, for the first time in her life. Her talent astounds me.

...the same way I am carried away by music that has the power to transform my mood and ignite my energy. I can't imagine how anyone can orchestrate such melodies, such beautiful harmonies, such touching lyrics.

I am in awe of what these writers, artists, and musicians can create...when I have trouble putting my thoughts into words, and commas still confuse me. When I can't really draw a decent stick figure. When I can barely carry a tune.

"Creativity is intelligence

having fun."

~Albert Einstein~

Then, I remind myself that, after college, I devoted seven years of my life, 24/7, to the study of medicine...and thirty years to its practice. That was my path in life. Now, I'm writing about it. It turns out that I won't be needing that rocker after all. I've already chosen the road I plan to take.

Or, perhaps, the road has chosen me.

"Wherever you go,

 go with all your heart."

~Confucius~

jan