Night Chapel

Most of the patients have gone home for Christmas already. The ones remaining seem confined to their room. As the hospital day winds down, a big, welcome emptiness rolls in and fills the place. From a factory of health it is becoming almost a monastery where the community has all retired.

I feel fine and need to walk but am linked to my intravenous stand which is dripping fifteen hours of hydration into my body to flush out the chemo. Otherwise, I am free to bend the rules. I go downstairs, out of the building unchallenged. The pavement is not friendly to the friend I am attached to but I can pull it over the gaps and bumps around the entrance. Two women are sitting on a bench talking. The younger is narrating an outrage about something, the other, perhaps her mother, is listening passively. I overhear a common phrase in this culture, something like ‘I said, I am not taking that. I won’t be treated like that by anyone.’

As I walk past, she notices me and asks directly ‘Are you having chemotherapy?’ I say I am and I am taking my friend for a walk. She hesitates and laughs.

Back in the building I walk the long, silent deserted corridors, all their daily bustle and purposes suspended. A sign to ‘Chapel’ draws me. I feel a refreshing hunger for sacred space. As I approach the doors a tall young patient quietly appears. His head is wrapped in bandages; perhaps a brain tumour. His face is radiant, joy-filled and his eyes beam with kindness, the sort of disarming smile that comes directly from and travels directly to the heart. We engage silently and he says, ‘everything will be ok.’

I acknowledge his word and reply ‘and I hope with you.’ ‘Yes, it will,’ he says. We look at each other in an intimate silence imbued with love. An easy pause. ‘Goodnight’ ‘Goodnight’.

In the empty chapel, familiar symbols are waiting faithfully. A light burns discretely beside the tabernacle. I meditate until my friend (the mobile stand) beeps and I realise it too needs to be plugged in and recharged.