Let’s look today, beyond the bed!

Two incidents come to my mind; the first, that of my friend’s father who was very sick. He had diabetes, a bad heart, and had once even collapsed on his doorstep, when my wife, a medical doctor, had been called to resuscitate him.

After that he was kept under constant observation. But what shocked everybody one day, was when his wife, while walking to the kitchen after feeding him, suddenly collapsed onto the floor and died.

No one had ever bothered to check on her as she cared for her husband night and day. Nobody realised the stress she was undergoing, maybe even having nightmares of a life without her husband or struggling to come to terms with his illness and pain.

The other incident was a call I made to a childhood friend recently, and as we spoke about days gone by, and I expected him to laugh with me, I suddenly heard the sound of sobbing. I stopped my bantering, “Why are you crying?” I asked, “Are my jokes so bad?”

“Bob,” he said, “You know my wife has been ill for the last two decades?”

“Yes,” I said, “How is she?”

“She’s stable,” he said, “But I am so down, I wanted to end my life! I have no support group around, even friends rarely call or visit!”

We spoke, and I tried to cheer him up, and promised to keep in touch.

I wept that night for my own callousness.

My mind goes to a dying man, hanging on to the last bit of life, hung on a cross. He has been brutalised, humiliated, thrashed, whipped, nails driven through hands and feet, and bleeding to death.

He lifts his eyes, and sees his mother, “Mother,” he could have cried, “Look what they’re doing to me!” That would be the cry of all of us, right?

John 19: 26-27 says, ‘ When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,”  and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.’

Through all his pain and suffering, Jesus looked beyond.

Just the night before, angels had ministered to him in the Garden of Gethsemane as he had shuddered at what he would soon be going through. That was the magnitude and intensity of the suffering that was about to happen.

But as he went through it, he saw his mother, and reached out to her.

Who is it we need to reach out to? Someone in our own home? A neighbour caring for another who is sick?

I hear the sobs of my friend, and also see the still figure of the wife who collapsed, and I feel we need to understand that the one who is suffering, need not only be the one on the hospital bed..!

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