The Waiting Room

I walked into a fluorescent lit waiting room, found a seat, and turned my attention to the television blasting late night reruns of Jerry Springer. There was no one else in the waiting room, so I waited alone. I was tired, it was too early, or too late, and the thought of pre-dawn swim practice before school made me nauseous. Tonight my mother’s migraine headaches were too painful to bear—a week long migraine was enough to drive anyone mad. So on this night she asked to be taken to the emergency room, as she did a few times a year. My step father was angry and resentful, he refused to take her. He stayed in bed, struggling to accept the suffering that has slowly become his bride after all these years. Mom woke me up, asked that I drive her to Methodist, and wait while the doctor injected enough Phenergan and Demerol to deaden the pain of three patients.

There is irony in a hospital waiting room: the place where I go to find comfort seems only to evoke a sense of coldness and fear. Waiting rooms don’t listen. They don’t understand. They surround you and stare at you and give you all the space and quiet you need so you can think of every possible horrible thing that could happen down the hall, where the docs and nurses walk around with clipboards clicking their pens. In this room, fear grows wild, weakness is all too real, and sorrow squeezes out hope. Sometimes all I know is the fear of that waiting room.