The Crucible

cru⋅ci⋅ble   /ˈkrusəbəl/ [kroo-suh-buhl]

–noun 1. a container of metal or refractory material employed for heating substances to high temperatures.
2. Metallurgy. a hollow area at the bottom of a furnace in which the metal collects.
3. a severe, searching test or trial.

When we left the hospital with Annie, she still had stitches from her neck to her tailbone. Since a car seat was out of the question, the nurses at the NICU gave us a car bed for Annie to use. They said that a former patient's family had donated three such beds and that we did not have to return it.

Now that Annabelle's back is healed and she is riding in a normal car seat, what were we to do with this car bed? If we took it to the Salvation Army, I doubt anyone would even know what it was. I decided that I would take it back to the NICU even though they said I could keep it. I was out and about running a dozen errands anyway on Saturday so it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I pulled into the patient loading zone at the hospital for the first time since we had left there. Even though we have been back to the hospital dozens of times since then, it has always been a different part of the campus.

I walked into the massive lobby and immediately remembered that, although it may look like security is lax, it most definitely is not. I walked straight up to the desk, signed in and explained what I was doing there. The security guard smiled and gave me the familiar NICU visitor sticker and waved me through.

I headed left through the lobby just as I had so many times before. Down the familiar hallway. Past the door to the Parent Living Unit where the wife and I spent our very first night "alone" with Annabelle. I was surprised to feel the flood of memories return.

I reached the NICU waiting room and there sat a lone father. The familiar black bag containing a breast pump in the seat next to him. It was only 8:30am but he looked completely exhausted.

I picked up the phone, explained why I was there, and an orderly came out and took the car bed from me. And that was that.

I hadn't had breakfast yet so I decided I would swing by the cafeteria and grab some food to go. I headed out the side door that I knew was a shortcut and walked the pathway to the adjacent building. In the automatic doors and down the same hall that they had wheeled Annabelle to and from her surgeries that first and second day after she was born.

Up the familiar stairs and into another familiar hallway.

I decided to use the men's room and didn't need to look for the signs. I knew exactly where it was.

Then I remembered that the hospital cafeteria did not take debit cards so I decided to pull out some cash. Once again, no need to look for signs. I knew exactly where the ATM was.

As I stood there pulling out cash, I shook my head and muttered, "No one should be this familiar with a hospital . . .". I felt a squeeze in my chest . . .

I entered the cafeteria and picked out the same breakfast I had eaten there many times before - Biscuits and gravy, four sausage links and hash browns. I was surprised to feel a lump in my throat . . .

As I approached the cashier, I remembered to keep the lid open so she could see what I had picked up. The cashier was the same lady who had helped me so many times before that at one point she had asked if I worked at the hospital, "No, it just feels like it" was my reply at the time.

She didn't recognize me this time and it brought home how much had changed in 3 months. I stood there handing her my cash as my eyes started to well up . . .

I pulled it together, headed back to the car and sat there crying over biscuits and gravy.

Hospitals are where it happens. Where life comes down to essentials. In one room you have a mother and father celebrating their new baby while in the next room over, another set of parents are left wondering where it all went wrong and how to plan a funeral for a child that never got a chance.

In the next hallway over a victim of a car wreck is struggling to survive while a teenage girl is coming in to the clinic have the cast "finally" taken off her leg.

And through it all, the hospital staff continues to move, to help, to comfort, as best as they are able after years of working in the crucible of life.

Life, death, celebration, mourning, loss, unanswered and unanswerable questions. And prayer. So many prayers. People who never pray - lifting up desperate entreaties. I imagine that on the basis of prayer alone, your local hospital is the biggest church in the area.

They may not look like it. They may not feel like it. But these hospitals are cathedrals in a way. Most of us start there. Most of us end there. And life is what happens between visits.

If you get the chance, the next time you are in a hospital stop and listen. Not with your ears, with your heart. Consider the drama that is unfolding around you on all sides. Offer a friendly word to the person in the waiting room next to you. Offer some encouragement to the staff. Say a prayer. And then another. And then another. Not just for your needs but for the needs around you.

You are in a holy place.

You are in the crucible.