12 Days Of Christmas

It was Christmas morning and the feasty scents of Christmas breakfast and merry sounds of carols were interrupted by a phone call. A stranger called to say mom had been hit by a scooter on a busy road close to our homes. In the frenzied hours that followed, mom was shuttled from the site to a nursing home and then to a hospital. The jumbled bustle of the ambulance siren, the vehicle horns and the faraway sounds of carols was symbolic of our jumbled thoughts. Nobody knew what lay ahead. ­­­­­­The twelve days that followed, from admission to discharge, are the twelve days I write about; the twelve days of Christmas as it was for us.

A star that shone
Mom was in a lot of pain and she stoically bore it all, with grace and fortitude. She winced and cried each time she was shifted, but spoke to us with great reassurance. It was only after the first medical reports came in that we got to know how grave the injury was. A femur broken into three, each part digging into her flesh with every slight move and a fractured wrist. It was much more than anyone could bear, and incomprehensible for a frail seventy year old. But mom in her true style bore it all, and that is why this Christmas piece has a star after all.

The power of love
As mom’s condition fluctuated between the known and unknown, the presence of family and friends, remote and near, provided us with great succor and support. Each time the phone rang with the reassuring voice of loved ones, her pain seemed slighter and her limbs a little more responsive. It felt like being empowered, empowered by the immense power of love.

It also helped us pause and think about the numerous people we met in the hospital with no one to call their own, no one to turn to for support and guidance or just a word of reassurance. In our hearts we prayed—God bless our large family and our circle of friends, and we hoped that someday we would be family or friend to someone in need.

They came from far and wide
We informed only a few people about the accident. But in the days that followed the list of well wishers who called, came, and enquired grew from the regular to long forgotten acquaintances of the past. They stood by our side, people whose lives mom and dad had touched in their own special way, creating a protective mulch around us, strengthening us with kind words and acts of kindness.

Their presence reminded me of the family who quietly stood by the manger waiting with ready arms and large hearts while the babe slept peacefully that silent night.

The doors that shut before us
The OT was guarded like a fortress with 3 sets of doors. No one had access to the world that lay beyond the doors, save a chosen few who worked behind them. Deluxe, special, or general—all waited humbly for news of a loved one outside. Money or power made no difference here—all were equally at the mercy of the people who worked inside and the Maker who decided all.

We have no money or power to speak about. But while waiting there endlessly, we realized, we shouldn’t have missed them at all.

A Christmas gift
Mom was successfully operated on and shifted for recovery to a ward. As the days went by, some patients around mom left for home and others for the world beyond. While praying for her broken limbs, her fluctuating pressure, her healing pains, and her irresponsible sugar counts, we had somehow missed to say thanks for the greatest gift of all—the gift of her life!

Now when we sit back and think of the ‘what ifs’ that could have been, a never ending list emerges—what if she had hit her head, what if it was truck instead of a scooter, what if she didn’t remember our contact numbers, what if no one on the street helped, what if the orthopedic had decided to take the day off for Christmas, what if she was hit somewhere far away from home, what if …

The list of questions gets longer every time we think about it. There are no answers save the grace of God. To Him we give thanks for this precious gift, a gift we so often take for granted.

Keepers of a kingdom
In this case that would be the caregivers at the hospital. In our short stay at the hospital we met many of them. No matter what their post or rank, they could be easily divided as those doing a job and those on a vocation. The difference was obvious in everything they did or said.

While being serviced by this mixed lot, we couldn’t help but wonder "what group do we fit into?"

We had some moments of cheer too.
Wise men from the south!
It is amazing to see the confidence with which some men dispense their wisdom on subjects unknown to them. They trickled in at the hospital too, acquaintances, each with their own bit about how to combat the problem. All was taken in good spirit as beneath it all was genuine concern to see mom healthy and active again.

It will be soon be a month since the accident. Mom rests beside me now as I put in these finishing lines to my belated Christmas piece, a steel rod supporting her broken bones. The Christmas wreath is back in the storeroom and Jim Reeves rests in the cassette rack for another year. But the twelve days of Christmas 2008, and the messages it brought to us will last a lifetime.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.