Flowers
The language of flowers.
Then there is the way the yellow daffodils lining our driveway wave in the springtime, and equally welcome my return from the grocery store. It is a time of promise. The girls will escape their chrome books, grab the scissors from the everything-else drawer and bring in some prize beauties to droop sweetly in the long empty Chianti bottle on the kitchen table. When words are not nuanced enough, flower are. They say what I cannot quite express in words, the funeral wreath, graduation leis, bridal bouquets. More honest than a poem or a song, not only because what we feel is often greater than the confines of words, but moreso, because flowers never fail to wither and die. And that is the truth.
This last week I went to the clinic for my annual checkup. It’s a public service so no great expectations. But a cholesterol blood test and the satisfaction of knowing I am a good boy, eating right and doing the bare minimum exercise to keep my heart safe is worth the visit. I was actually looking forward to the visit because I have had decent health of late and was anticipating returning home with a ‘good job’ star on my report card.
So I am early for the 9:15 appointment. I rush to finish the paperwork expecting to be called at any moment, with the clipboard in hand. The wait begins. Others come and go. I wait. Even people who arrive long after me somehow leapfrog. My doctor is apparently behind schedule. An hour passes. I am practicing patience taking pride in the fact that I feel good and all those others seem to be suffering. And I have time today. I am not missing work like one lady pleaded. Not in my stained sweats like another. Not with 3 little brown bears like the stoic mum opposite me. Just sitting, clock and people gazing, with my phone in hand, boring me with repeat news about catastrophe in Gaza.
Enter a young man, adolescent really, that place in life somewhere between where we can have a child and when we actually do. He is blond and lanky, lopes in not looking right or left and swallows his words. Can I get screened for STD’s he asks with forced bravado. The lady at the desk asks him to repeat. Flushed he turns to leave.
It’s now 10.40 and I get the call. Step onto the scales, 98% oxygen absorption is a victory, blood pressure is low gets me another pat on the back, pulse, oh my, I am winning. The bearded nurse is nervous and complimentary. The doc will be in shortly.
The thin walls give privy to a couple and their sleepless nights, scary dreams, stomach pain after meals, ‘I never dress’, one of them says, ‘cause by the time I can get up it is already afternoon.’
I am still waiting.
My heart rate and pressure are fine, my weight has not changed, I feel just fine too. This is bullshit. I don’t need this. I look for the exit and head out. My voice is a bit shaky now that I am rebelling against the system, staking my boundaries, bad-assing. ‘I’ve been here since before 9 am,’ I say, and she says, ‘Do you want to reschedule?’ A woman pokes out from behind her laptop and tells me, looking at her watch and shaking her head, ‘Me too.’
As I open the door to the street the beard runs to me and says, “She is here, she is here. Do you still want to see her”, and I figure the sunk cost is too great now to turn into a permanent loss, so yes, about turn.
There we are. She is opposite me, looking over the rim of the laptop behind the examination bed. Her grey streaks tied tightly back, revealing soft round cheeks and dark, busy, wandering eyes. I am still shaking, not used to feeling this way, sitting with the insult, the righteous accuser in me finding himself empowered over my better judgment. And this is for all of us who are hostage to her tardiness. Hostage to the abuse of institutional shits the world over.
She is quiet, tilts her head, and cannot hide the tears, flowing like rain down her freckled cheeks. Her mouth curls and trembles. So quiet. I have said too much. Oh no. beloved. I made this all about me. Of course, something big must have kept you. Are you OK? The fix it words slip out of me, ‘Let’s take a moment and breath, together, and start again. I am so sorry’
She lifts her screen and wipes her eyes. ‘The system doesn’t work, it’s become impossible,’ she says softly.
And then she asks me, her cheeks moist and glistening.. about me, how am I really doing, what is new, any ailments, how do I sleep, when do I get exercise, am I living alone still, what do I need? Is there anything else you want to talk about?
And she has all the time in the world for me. Just me.
When she left she did so as quietly as she entered. She disappeared to the next room, before I could...give her a hug, no that’s not right…say my thanks…that’s not enough…
I drove home to the welcome of daffodils, thinning out now as the summer takes over from spring. Flowers. Yes! Roses. Hmm.. not on message. But there are the short stem beauties that send a message of a greater love, appreciation, honoring. Zinnias, Anemone’s, Gerbera daisies.
Her tears fresh in my mind, all I could think of was her desk decorated with flowering tributes.
Anonymous flowers from all of us.
This world of grace is the one I want to live in. Each of us just doing our best. 50 bucks in the tips jar, free coffee for the person three orders down the line, anonymous flowers for the healers. What secret gift will you give today?
