A Hospital Visit
Painful rushes of air through my lungs, the throb on my forehead: results of pulsating sinuses, the raw itch of my throat, and a suffocating congestion. Even I, aspiring business student that I was, had paid enough attention in grade 9 science to diagnose myself with a severe flu and bronchitis. From the moment my eyes opened in the dawn hours of that cold February morning, I watched myself, outside my body as it were, trip out of bed and stumble in the hallway towards my parents’ room. Two knocks on their door, one cry for a doctor, and I collapsed.
I woke up in a hospital bed, doctor probing into my eye with a bright, yet comfortable light whose acute annoyance assured me I was very much alive. After writing my prescription (two temporary inhalers for the bronchitis), I was allowed to remain in bed for another few hours to recover my strength. I looked over to the bed next to me to find another patient, an old man of South Asian descent peering at me through the flimsy curtain.
Typical of a haughty, arrogant teen, I stared defiantly back into the old eyes only to see an old man aided by intravenous tubes, an artificial respirator and a heart monitor. While I might have wished to pity his situation, his sharp, clear eyes held me in focus as I stared, daring me to react – scorning whatever pity I had. Then he spoke in my native language- in plain, simple Urdu: “If you had met God today, what answer would you give to His questions?”
Right away I thought: “Is this guy serious?” and “Poor guy, all those tubes to his brain have made him a few bricks short of the load”…yet my fainter thoughts whispered in trepidation: “My God…what the heck would I say?” I merely looked back, dumbfounded and shook my head signaling my loss for words. I realized I wouldn’t be able to say anything in response to my Creator’s questions.
The old man suddenly stared at me hard, smiled in a fashion reminiscent of old times and uttered: “Me too”.
A few weeks later and in the bloom of health one typically experiences after a severe flu, I returned to my doctor, requesting a note to verify my missed school days. By off chance I inquired about the old man, the fellow South Asian whom, for a brief moment, I had shared a sort of camaraderie relationship in the hospital room. The doctor looked up from the note he was writing and gazed at me for a few moments, perhaps wondering whether it would be moot to tell someone in no way related. Finally he answered: “I’m sorry, but he passed away a few days ago. A tough cookie that guy was, but age took its toll”
Although not the most knowledgeable or devout of all Muslims, I was chastened by that episode to take a step back and reflect on my life. The idea that I could die at anytime was a fact that dawned on me…a fact most teens, by in large, will never contemplate. I realized that God would care more about the five dollars I donated to the Cancer Society, then the one hundred on pants. That God would care more about the five times I raised myself from prayer, than the one hundred times from pushups. I was inspired to do good, to help those in need, to be an active member of the community that needs me. Perhaps that withered, old man at the hospital who had no response to God’s questions spoke too soon. Whether he wasted his life or not, the old coot inspired me. My good deeds, God willing, will be my response. And in repayment, perhaps I will be his
Painful rushes of air through my lungs, the throb on my forehead: results of pulsating sinuses, the raw itch of my throat, and a suffocating congestion. Even I, aspiring business student that I was, had paid enough attention in grade 9 science to diagnose myself with a severe flu and bronchitis. From the moment my eyes opened in the dawn hours of that cold February morning, I watched myself, outside my body as it were, trip out of bed and stumble in the hallway towards my parents’ room. Two knocks on their door, one cry for a doctor, and I collapsed.
I woke up in a hospital bed, doctor probing into my eye with a bright, yet comfortable light whose acute annoyance assured me I was very much alive. After writing my prescription (two temporary inhalers for the bronchitis), I was allowed to remain in bed for another few hours to recover my strength. I looked over to the bed next to me to find another patient, an old man of South Asian descent peering at me through the flimsy curtain.
Typical of a haughty, arrogant teen, I stared defiantly back into the old eyes only to see an old man aided by intravenous tubes, an artificial respirator and a heart monitor. While I might have wished to pity his situation, his sharp, clear eyes held me in focus as I stared, daring me to react – scorning whatever pity I had. Then he spoke in my native language- in plain, simple Urdu: “If you had met God today, what answer would you give to His questions?”
Right away I thought: “Is this guy serious?” and “Poor guy, all those tubes to his brain have made him a few bricks short of the load”…yet my fainter thoughts whispered in trepidation: “My God…what the heck would I say?” I merely looked back, dumbfounded and shook my head signaling my loss for words. I realized I wouldn’t be able to say anything in response to my Creator’s questions.
The old man suddenly stared at me hard, smiled in a fashion reminiscent of old times and uttered: “Me too”.
A few weeks later and in the bloom of health one typically experiences after a severe flu, I returned to my doctor, requesting a note to verify my missed school days. By off chance I inquired about the old man, the fellow South Asian whom, for a brief moment, I had shared a sort of camaraderie relationship in the hospital room. The doctor looked up from the note he was writing and gazed at me for a few moments, perhaps wondering whether it would be moot to tell someone in no way related. Finally he answered: “I’m sorry, but he passed away a few days ago. A tough cookie that guy was, but age took its toll”
Although not the most knowledgeable or devout of all Muslims, I was chastened by that episode to take a step back and reflect on my life. The idea that I could die at anytime was a fact that dawned on me…a fact most teens, by in large, will never contemplate. I realized that God would care more about the five dollars I donated to the Cancer Society, then the one hundred on pants. That God would care more about the five times I raised myself from prayer, than the one hundred times from pushups. I was inspired to do good, to help those in need, to be an active member of the community that needs me. Perhaps that withered, old man at the hospital who had no response to God’s questions spoke too soon. Whether he wasted his life or not, the old coot inspired me. My good deeds, God willing, will be my response. And in repayment, perhaps I will be his
— with Irkan Beigh.
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