The Hospital

I never liked hospitals. Not even when I was young, but then again who really does like hospitals? I guess a better way to describe my feelings is as an apprehensive disgust. Those are the words that come to mind when I think of hospitals. Apprehensive because I know that people have died there. I also know that people go to hospitals to wait to die and struggle while they do it. Disgust because I know the suffering that has occurred. The bacteria, viruses, germs and other microscopic parasites that have infected healthy people and turned them into sickly beings. Hospitals are a place of human suffering that house all the germs that make people ill; a place where life comes to an end. At least that's how I always saw it.

Maybe these feelings started when I was young and my father was pronounced dead, but I can't remember going to see him in the hospital as well as my other trips.

Have you ever noticed how walking into a hospital the temperature just seems to drop? I was told hospitals are kept cold to stop things like bacteria from growing. Still, the cold temperature only adds onto the eerie effect of hospitals. Then, you see the people around you and you know they're all sick. All of them are carrying something nasty inside

 The elderly are wheeled around in beds with faded eyes and bed sheets that smell like vomit and urine. Bed sores and blisters on their skin. Can you blame a kid for being scared? And now as I sit in this hospital chair, watching a friend sleep with an IV attached to his arm, I think back to you, Grandpa. I wasn't there when you passed. You were the one hospital trip I missed and so I often wonder what you must have looked like laying on that hospital bed? My grandpa, basically the lead male figure in my life taken out by a heart attack. 

You were probably very weak, resting in the bed with a heart monitor attached to your chest. It's hard to picture you there and sometimes I forget you ever took that trip that you never returned from. Sometimes I feel guilty believing that maybe if I had been there something would have been different. Or at least I could have had a chance to say goodbye. That one word would suffice.

Others had to describe that night to me. I picture you losing control of your body and tears brim in my eyes. I don't want to cry though, you know I was never one for crying. But to be honest, I have cried about you dying so many times and am sure I'll cry many more. It was close to a year ago,  but it still feels like yesterday.

So now as I watch my friend in the hospital, I begin to cry as well. I know it's not as serious as a heart attack, but I believe that my friend will die. That's what happens in hospitals. Everyone dies and the living continue to walk through life, not really living. So I'm just going to keep on walking. That's the best I can do.

The hospital should be a place of hope and restoration, but I can only see the dark side and the negative outcomes. As you can guess by now I could never be a nurse. The sad part is one day we'll all find ourselves there. We'll all find ourselves at the hospital.