It was just going to be one of those days. I could feel it in my bones. An unusual day. A special day. A potentially good day if I was willing to cooperate. But it could go either way ...
I sat at the lake reading and journalling and listening to a cuckoo calling from up in the woods. I was really not looking forward to my trip to Bristol. As much as I wanted to see my brother I just don't like long car journeys. I get worried about cars overheating, about traffic, about running out of oil. I always double check everything. Oil and water and tyre pressure and enough petrol to get stuck in traffic for hours on end and not run dry. I am a control freak.
I was trying to talk myself out of it. Reasoning why I could skip the long day. But I knew it was important.
I was made for this. I had been given my assignment and now I knew I had to go and do it. But I had to push myself to get going. This wasn't going to just happen unless I set my heart to do it & stopped procrastinating.
Running through a mental list of why I might leave this trip until another day , my thoughts were interrupted when it started to rain stickey sweet sap on me. A little round white tiny bead landed on my arm. I looked up. Another round ball landed. It was falling from heaven. Sugary tree sap. I licked it from my arms and thought ...
'what on earth, it's raining tree syrup.'
I looked at the surface of the table and now noticed the little white balls that had been lying there all along. The ones now smearing my journal with sticky marks. I suppose the sap has risen and is overflowing, falling in little minuscule beads out of the tree pores and onto me and my sitting spot.
I licked my fingers and arms and any little beads lying on my journal. It was sweet, like a soft diluted honey. Laughing I started to gather my stuff together. ...
" Very funny, You win. I'm getting covered in the stuff and I can't sit around licking sugar off me all day. I will get going. OK, lets do this! "
What was I about to do? I was about to visit my brother to cheer him along, to pray for him, to bind up the broken hearted. To proclaim the favour of God on his life. Yes, little old me.
So I told God,
" You know I hate long car journeys, please let there be no traffic jams, please let the car not play up and please find me a free parking space really close to the hospital. "
( Yes I am fearful, self absorbed and a control freak. But God & I know that and we are working on it. )
And off I went in Bumble Bee, my bright yellow Mini, eating up the miles, breezing down the beautiful M4 through Berkshire and Wiltshire and straight into Bristol. Suddenly the journey was nearly done and I was in the suburbs approaching the hospital. I thought about my request for a parking space and talked myself out of it.
" Silly girl. God isn't into giving his kids parking spaces.'"
( So quick to forget, He did that for me just 2 days earlier, I roared into church bang on time due to the special space that was just waiting empty, slap bang opposite the doors of G live on Sunday. A genuine miracle in a town that is known for its lack of parking and practically non existent free parking. A town where you fight for any free space. Crawling the curb. Waiting for someone to leave. Yet, there it was, a huge empty space just waiting for me.)
But today, I felt unsure of my request. Lacking courage and faith I turned off early into the residential suburbs where I knew I could find a space but would have a longer walk to the hospital. Locking the car I headed off down the road that leads to the hospital. And what the heck, there it was ... a huge space waiting empty just a stones throw from Intensive Care. A car pulled into my space and a lady hopped out. As if to make His point and get my attention this beautiful lady walked straight up to me, a stranger and said ... " Is it OK if I take this space'?"
I just smiled and said ... "Yes. There are no parking restrictions here." The space was mine but now it's yours. Enjoy it.
And so it was that I arrived upbeat and excited to see my brother. He was in a new room, darker than the old one, with an internal window looking down onto the hospital concourse. The room felt airless and my brother looked tired and depressed. In a millisecond I saw it flash before me, 55 days of staring at these hospital walls.
55 days of sleeping on a plastic hospital mattress.
55 days of having his blood pressure and temperature taken.
55 days of politely answering mundane questions.
55 days of waking at 3.00am to bright hospital lights and machines and tubes.
55 days of sleeping and waking and sleeping and waking and wondering what on earth is going on.
55 days of smiling at visitors who really tired him out.
55 days of being polite to nurses and doctors.
55 days of taking medication.
55 days of wearing hospital socks with plastic grippy bits to stop him sliding on the shiny hospital floor.
55 days of being asked his name, when his date of birth is and where he is right now?
55 days of staring out of the window at the world outside.
55 days of looking at old photos and being asked to remember where he was and who he was with.
55 days of the hospital doors swinging open and then swinging closed.
55 days of lights being turned on and off.
55 days of hospital smells and hospital noise.
55 days of people talking over him and then loudly repeating their questions to him.
55 days of seeing different members of the family, his boss, his friends and colleagues.
55 days of wondering when his body would be better.
55 days of listening to other people discussing him.
55 days of watching his hair grow over the shaved part of his head where they drilled a hole to relief the pressure. (The wound is healed and covered over now. You would never know it had happened.)
55 days of ticking hospital menu options for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
55 long days .....
And then one day my younger sister walked in and said "lets go downstairs and see the garden," so he got into a wheelchair still wearing his pyjamas and the polyester hospital socks and left his 4 walls of white paint and medical charts, and took the lift downstairs into the hospital concourse, through the coffee shop and out into the garden area alongside the coffee shop.
And he sat with the sun on his face and he remembered what it feels like to be alive.
But the waiting was not over yet. Back to the single room with the 4 walls and the TV and the view over the front entrance area.
55 days of waiting and waiting some more and waiting a little bit longer.
55 days of being told to drink the protein shakes, to eat the protein jelly.
55 days of eating more, eating chocolate and nuts and bananas. Oh so many bananas.
55 days of apples that are getting bruised and going off.
55 days of cereal bars, packets of nuts and raisins and seeds.
55 days of wondering when this misery will end.
55 days of noticing that his hair is growing fast and there are now a few grey hairs coming in.
55 days of staring at the ceiling.
55 days of watching TV with friends and family. Making small talk about things he can't quite remember.
And then another visitor took him downstairs for coffee. And it felt slightly more normal. He was still in a wheelchair but at least he was not in his hospital room.
More sleeping.
More trying to get comfortable on that plastic mattress in that big empty hospital room.
More questions and more meal times.
And his sister came again and took him outside to see the helicopter landing site. And they both get told off for trespassing on the helicopter's zone. And they get lost on the way back to the room and ended up at the wrong bed in the wrong ward. But it didn't matter. And he was laughing.
Hope was rising and things were looking a little bit brighter every day. Simon had begun to get out more and more in a hospital wheelchair and he was looking so much better.
More hospital food.
More questions.
More tablets.
More blood tests.
More monitoring of temperature and blood pressure.
More falling asleep in the middle of the day.
Which brings us to that special day when I left behind the lake and the tree sap and made my way to Bristol and forfeited my parking space.
I rocked up and said ...
" I come bearing good news. I am here to cheer you up. It's a lovely day, lets get out and go for a walk."
Simon looked surprised but said "OK" as I handed him some clothes to change into. A pair of socks and shoes. He stripped off the plastic hospital socks and the pyjama bottoms and put on trousers and white trainers.
He wondered about taking some money. I said I had everything covered. I grabbed his sweatshirt off the back of the chair incase he got cold, told him to have a quick sip of water before we left because it was hot outside. Then I opened the door and said.... "Lets do this."
Now you have to understand that I had this in mind right from the start. When I first came to this hospital, after the shock of seeing my brother in Intensive Care. After entering the room where he lay semi conscious, tied up to machines, skeletal and grey. Trembling with emotion I had taken his hand and prayed over him. His eyes were still shut but after we prayed he opened them. And I cried. Because he was alive. And because he wasn't paralysed. And because he was breathing.
And we left him for a lunch break and retreated outside into this same entrance area, sitting on a bench eating lunch with my other brother Alexander. Exhausted and a little scared. Sitting on a bench with a warm sun shining up above and behind us a statue of a Lion who made me think immediately of Aslan from 'The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe.' It was in that very first visit that I set my sights on bringing Simon out to meet the Lion.
Back inside the hospital. I am opening the door and we leave behind his room. We leave behind Gate 7b. Walking slowly we make our way towards the lifts. Push the button. Wait. We head down to the ground floor. We walk out of the lift and into the noisy concourse.
I imagine what it must feel like for Simon. Suddenly there are so many people walking towards him. So much light. So much noise and movement. he is not in a wheelchair, he is walking alone and he is heading towards the revolving front door.
And no-one is stopping us. I keep expecting someone to halt us and say ...
" What are you doing? You are not allowed to just walk off. "
No-one even notices us. We are just a brother and sister making our way slowly to the door. 2 people in a crowded hospital foyer on a sunny Tuesday.
Now you have to understand what is going through my head. I am walking on Cloud 9. I am ecstatic inside.
We exit the building, through the revolving glass doors. And no alarm bells go off. No-one notices as we walk out of the building, right slap bang into the sunshine.
And the grass is green and the people outside are smiling. And I punch the air, high fiving an invisible angel on the way out.
And then it starts. A quiet background rumble coming from above. At first it is a quiet patter. But then it picks up and becomes a wave of loud clapping. And it gets louder and louder. And I am smiling. And somewhere up above a crowd of angels have stood to their feet and are cheering.
And in heaven God sits on His throne and smiles.
I take Simon out and sit on the very same bench I had sat on nearly 2 months ago with Alexander. I remember the sunshine, the grass, the gentle hum of activity all around us. The pleasant layout of this area.Wide generous footpaths, a carpet of grass and trees. I remember sitting looking up at the clouds. Sitting next to my other brother, pumped up on a adrenaline, shocked and tired.
I look behind at the familiar Lion statue. It has faithfully stood guard, greeting me every time I enter this hospital.
So I find myself sitting here, here on that same bench, the same view, but with a different brother. With the sick brother now well enough to walk outside. After 55 days of living inside those hospital walls.
I let Simon rest. I just embrace the moment, sitting together on this bench letting the clouds drift by. Enjoying the land of the living. Soaking in the bright light, letting a light breeze tickle my face and the back of my neck.
We sit and watch the world unfold around us. We talk about work and his house and what comes next. We sit together and are silent.
Then when he is rested. I ask if he is ready to for a challenge. Is he ready to walk up onto that grass, not a smooth easy level pavement, but a rough, thick carpet of grass? Is he ready to walk over to the Lion?
"What Lion?" He looks confused. I point behind at the heavy solid metal sculpture. He says ...
" Oh that, Yes, I can do it. Lets go. I'm ready."
And I hear the whisper from heaven as the Father says ...
" He's ready. Today is the day. "
So we walk over. Up off the pavement. Up into the thick grass. He walks unaided. And I am beaming. It feels like I am introducing him to my best friend. We approach the Lion and I take my phone out for the obligatory photo. Simon looks at the Lion. He strokes it. He touches the face. I take my picture and I imagine this internal conversation as the Lion looks Simon in the eye with kindness and says ...
" We have been waiting a long time for you Simon."
Obviously some of this is a figment of my huge imagination. But some of it is not!
I do know that from the moment Simon was born all those years ago in Zimbabwe I have been his older sister. And I can remember at least one occasion when I saved his life. We were only kids, Simon was still a toddler, I was roughly 5 years old and Simon would have been 3. There were no parents around. Possibly Mum had just popped back inside to fetch something. We were eating lunch in a dingy floating in the swimming pool. Yes, I know all responsible parents will at this point be thinking .. 'You were what?'
Crazy I know but this is how I remember it. I don't know if we had permission to take food out onto our boat but that was what we were doing. I was happy and excited. What an adventure. A picnic in a boat.
I was happily enjoying bossing my little brother around when he fell out of the dingy into the swimming pool and started sinking rapidly towards the bottom. Like a heavy weight. He just went down fast. Plummeting towards the bottom. I dove in after him and grabbed his hair which was as thick back then as it is now, and pulled him back up to the surface! I pulled him all the way up with his hair. Dragging him towards the light. I finally made daylight and pulled Simon up and pushed him towards the surface while my feet pumped furiously keeping me afloat. Moments later Mum came running out of the house, having obviously felt that inner voice saying, 'Get back out there, your kids are in trouble, They need you.' Abandoning her wooden clog Scholls on the grass, Mum jumped into the pool in her bell bottom jeans and grabbed us both up in her arms. (Its a good thing I learnt to swim at 3.)
Now over 40 years later and after nearly 2 months in South Mead Hospital I finally took my brother out of the hospital, out of the darkness and into the light. Just like that day in the swimming pool, I dragged him with me towards the light. Out to meet the Lion who has faithfully stood guard these 55 long days. The Lion who was there at the start. The one who was there on the day Simon was born. The Lion who symbolises Aslan for me. Not just a fellow sufferer of affliction, but the one who bore it all for us.
And thus He fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, He himself took ( in order to carry away ) our weaknesses & infirmities and bore away our diseases.
Matthew 8 :17
They brought to Him many who were under the power of demons, and He drove out the spirits with a word & restored to health all who were sick. Matthew 8 :16