I am always amazed at what lessons life gives us. Sometimes they are so subtle that they don't seem like lessons and sometimes they are just little reminders of things we already know..
My uncle recently passed away. He had planned on coming up on July 2nd and called to say that he had fallen and wouldn't be making it. I had train tickets to go down to help him on Aug. 17. On July 27th, I received a call from my aunt telling me that my uncle was in the hospital and wasn't expected to make it much longer. This was sort of a shock since he had just been planning on coming up a couple of weeks prior. I changed the tickets out to go down that day. He passed away 2 days later. While I was there at the hospital, waiting for the elevator to take me to the cafeteria, I looked down the hall and noticed a man walking down the hall with a baby car seat. He was followed by someone carrying a handful of balloons for a new baby... In that moment, things were so surreal. How strange it is that a single place can hold new life and imminent death within its walls at the same time.. One place can hold immense happiness, and grief within its walls at the same time... How the circle of life can begin and end within the same walls. It is hard to explain how odd a sensation, that was. Yes, I knew these things on a surface level.. but it was almost like time kind of slowed for a moment while I watched that man taking the car seat to where there was certainly a new life, while my uncle was laying in a bed that he was not going to be leaving, alive. I am not angry or jealous or anything.. I just find it very surreal. In the line of work I am in, I know that not everyone dies in the hospital... Likewise, not everyone is born in a hospital.. However, a hospital holds both ends of the life cycle within its walls, and much more, as well..
