hospitals

Hospitals smell of decay.  Sure they are brightly lit and full of cheery workers and posterboards, but there is always that under current of the dead and dying.

Every time I walk through their hallways, I find myself tensing. Putting on a strong face. Steeling against the sight and smell of the elderly crumbling under the weight of age and hospital gowns.  Every ounce of heart and energy drains out of me.  Numbness and dutiful smiles are all that's left by the time I get where I'm going.

I'm always shocked when I enter the room and find my loved one is happily sitting there.  The nauseating smell of sterilized illness vanishes leaving me alone with stories and chatter and memories.  But the worry remains. The fearful grief clings to my heart like a fuzzy halo, oddly indistinguishable from my love for them.  But it fades enough to make room for laughter.

At some point, everything grows heavy again.  The plain white sheets and the plastic food containers bore into my thoughts, suffocating.  And desperate for air, for a break from the fluorescent lights, you say goodbye-for-now and head off to the car.  There is the urge to run. The urge to pretend this isn't real. The need to come back and find them waiting in a wheelchair at the front door, ready to go home.

And suddenly it hits you how much it sucks being a grown-up now that kisses have lost their magical healing power.