I am posting this with permission from Kristina. She is currently at USU, in English Education. this is an essay she wrote today. I can't even begin to describe how I felt when I read it. She really nailed it. Everything we all feel. All in one essay. She dang well better get an 'A' on it. Just a little insight into our home away from home for the past 6 years. Thank you Tina.


Thursday, January 26, 2012
Hospital Home. (White Walls)
Okay. This is REALLY LONG. It's an essay for one of my classes. But if you've ever had family in the hospital, maybe you can relate, and if not, you can learn more about what makes me the way I am! :)

White Walls
by Kristina Moore

There’s no welcome mat at the place that most resembles home to me. No doorbell, no cheery holiday decorations on the door. Where a doorbell should be, instead a harsh white wire screwed into a white wall holds a bottle of white hand sanitizer and a note that says “Keep the germs out” or something close to that. There’s no comfy armchair to snuggle down in and lose yourself in a good book and there’s no family picture on the walls except for sometimes one above the bed held up by a piece of scotch tape. As you walk into the room, you aren’t met by the sweet smell of fresh bread baking in the oven like in some homes, rather, the almost bitter aroma of chemicals, plastics, and medicines accost your nostrils. The entire place smells clean, so clean that it’s almost nauseating, but you grow to love that clean smell because it becomes a sign of a safe place. For me, it became the smell of home.

Hospitals mean different things to different people. For some, they are frightening. For doctors, they are just a workplace. For others, they are a place to be hated and avoided. For me, hospitals are home. I don’t understand the fear of hospital rooms and I never have. The place itself isn’t frightening; it’s the thoughts of what may happen there that really scare people. Hospitals don’t make people nervous; facing the facts of mortality and the risk of losing someone makes people nervous. It’s different for me now. I don’t have any of these feelings as I walk through the tall glass doors into the lobby of the hospital. As a sophomore in college, each step into the hospital makes me feel a little closer to home. As I walk to the elevators and press the familiar red button with the upwards arrow, I feel more at home than when I walked through the tall glass doors, and as I ride up to the tenth, or sometimes eleventh, floor and hear the tone that accompanies each floor, I feel more at home than when I pressed the familiar red button with the upwards arrow. As I step out of the elevator onto the old blue carpet and smile at nurses I recognize as I walk down the hallway, I feel more at home than when I listened to the tone of the elevator. Finally, as I approach the room with his number on it and I rub my hands with the white hand sanitizer on the wall, I breathe a sigh. I’m home.

I knock softly on the door, though it’s just a courtesy since I know he will tell me to come in, and I walk from the old blue carpet onto the cold tile floor, sweep back the curtain that surrounds the doorway, and smile as I see him. The familiar sounds of monitors and pumps beep constantly. The sound of those steady beeps is more comforting to me than almost anything. The constant beeps mean he’s still here, that he’s still alive. I look around as I step into the room, and the sight brings a flood of feelings as the small square room, with white walls and brown doors and a window overlooking the city welcomes me in a way other places can’t. The tall, wily IV pole loaded with bags of medicine stands next to the bed, assuring that he’s getting the treatment he needs to live another day. The hard couch with the pattern that reminds me of fishing lures sits next to the window overlooking the park with the statue of an Indian head, and it is covered with a purse, a blanket, and the wrappers of food from the vending machine: evidence of visitors. The armchair with the too-straight back sits next to the bed like always, and as always, his strongest supporter, her eyes drooping from lack of sleep, sits reading a book although she glances constantly at the numbers on the pumps and machines. I soak in the rush of feelings this room brings and I walk into the heart of my home. I step to the bed and say hello to my father, who is laying in the bed, connected to wires and tubes and monitors attached to multiple machines. He answers like he always does, “Hiya Bopster!” His voice isn’t as loud or as happy as it used to be, but he’s trying. I kiss his cold, sweaty forehead and give him a gentle hug, avoiding the tubes so I don’t upset the machines and cause the steady beeping to stop. I walk over to the arm chair and hug my mother, who puts down her book so we can talk. After summing up the recent events of my life to her, with dad sometimes talking, sometimes dosing off due to the pain medicine, it goes quiet. As I sit on the couch and gaze out the window at the Indian statue in the middle of a pristine park, I remember the time when the hospital was still frightening-before it became home to me. I try to pinpoint the moment it changed from horror to home, and I am taken back in time.

I remember being in eighth grade, still struggling to learn who I was and who I wanted to become, and dealing with the junior high drama that we all go through. This time the hospital was only a half mile from our house, and dad went in for surgery. I remember being worried, but not overly worried, because even then hospitals didn’t terrify me, they just weren’t home yet. Dad was released a short time after his surgery, and I remember him being excited about eating a turkey sandwich as he left the hospital. I can remember the look of concern on mom’s face as dad told us about it, and it was clear that she didn’t approve of the hospital’s choice in giving him the food. It was nice to have my daddy home, and I went to a youth activity at my church with my siblings that evening. I was laughing with my friends, and I had just about finished painting a rectangle block for some charity a bright navy blue color when someone, I can’t remember who, came over to me and told me that my dad was being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. “Don’t worry,” they said, “You can stay and finish painting your blocks, there’s nothing you can do anyway.” I finished my blue block, but the color didn’t seem as bright as before. Michelle and I went home and we waited. I curled up in the armchair in our living room and listened for the phone, and I didn’t know that this would be the first of many nights in that armchair waiting for news, good or bad, because not knowing is worse than anything. I was technically home there, but all I wanted was to be with my dad because I knew even then that wherever he and mom were, that was home. Our brick house with the armchair wasn’t home as much as that corner hospital room where I visited him with my siblings almost daily after that night. As I visited him, and as pictures and cards gradually appeared on the walls of his room, it began to feel more and more like home, and the fear of the white hospital room began to fade away.

Now, my dad’s nurse comes in to change his medication, and she startles me from this memory into another recollection. This time, we are at a different hospital, but the room looks the same. The walls are just as white, the room is just as square, and the chairs are just as uncomfortable. Dad is hooked up to more machines than before, and the situation is more desperate. Time has blocked the details of the evening, but the feeling of impending goodbye has never left me. We were alone as a family in the room. I remember trying not to cry, because I am the strong one and I don’t cry because if I can keep from crying, we can pretend everything is okay. We can pretend we’re not saying goodbye, we can pretend dad will be there when we wake up in the morning, we can pretend we’re not afraid. I look around at the tears on Michelle’s face and I am sincerely jealous of her, because she can let herself cry. I look at mom, and I see the love on her face as she looks at dad and tries to smile, but her smile is only half sincere because she’s just as afraid as we are. We kneel on the cold tile around the bed and we have family prayer. Since everyone’s eyes are closed, I let myself cry a little and I hide my face in the scratchy blue blanket on dad’s bed. I make sure to wipe my eyes before the prayer ends so I can try to act like everything’s still okay. As we kneel here, on the bleak hospital floor, surrounding the strongest man we know and petitioning our Lord, this becomes home. The tile digging into my knees becomes more comforting to me than our soft green carpet in the living room, the scratchy blanket feels more natural than the quilt in our family room that grandma made, and the smell of cleaner and chemicals becomes more soothing than that of home-baked bread. Everything changes, and I somehow know that this will always feel like home to me. These white walls, once so intimidating and desolate, have come to symbolize hope and safety. I realize that the things I once found frightening about hospitals have become the very things I cherish. The prayer ends and one by one we lean down to hug dad and I feel like my heart will break as I walk out of the room. I feel comforted, though, by the constant beeps of the monitor as I walk away assuring me that, at least for now, he’s still there.

Driving home from college to visit dad in the hospital, another new hospital, I know that it doesn’t matter which hospital he’s in. It will be home to me for as long as he is there and probably even after he’s gone. The white walls and the beeping of the monitors and the uncomfortable couches, they all stay the same. I think that’s what makes it home to me, it’s the stability. No matter how bad things get, those monitors keep beeping, those walls say bright white, and there will always be a scratchy blanket on the bed. At home here, in this hospital room, everything is under control. The monitors and medications keep dad stable and I know that people are watching over him while he’s here. This place, with its white paint, limited TV channels, cafeteria food, and constant interruptions by nurses gives me the stability I have craved since our constant string of hospital visits began. I feel safe as I lie on the couch and watch some football game I don’t really care about while dad tells me facts about the team or talks about the commercials. I feel at home here, and I wouldn’t trade the ugly hospital room couch for our plushy living room couch. The white walls keep us safe, and help is always near. As long as dad is here, this is where I want to be.

Hospitals mean different things to different people. For some, they are frightening. For doctors, they are just a workplace. For others, they are a place to be hated and avoided. To me, hospitals are home.

Well, if you survived that super long story, I hope you enjoyed it, or learned something! :) I love my dad and my family, and home is wherever they are!