During the weeks before mom’s official diagnosis when she was in an out of the hospital, I remember having a conversation with my cousin Isaac in which I asked him a question that I was afraid to know the answer to, but needed to know the answer to. Isaac knew what it was to experience your mom being diagnosed and what life after that diagnosis was like. While I was aware that every diagnosis and every person/family is different, my mind that has a strong need to just “figure things out” needed to know his story. With fear I asked him, “what happens if its cancer?” He went on to give me some practical insight into the conversations regarding treatment options and things like that, but knowing the depths of what I was really asking, it was his next response that stayed with me and has shaped so many moments for me in the months that followed. He told me to imagine myself in a waiting room where there’s different doors that lead to different rooms. Maybe one says its cancer, another one says it’s not, maybe there are doors that you can’t even make out the signs on, but the thing is, you’re in the waiting room. You don’t know which door you’re going to have to walk through, so don’t walk through doors you aren’t being asked to walk through. It’s hard, but you’re in the waiting room, so you have to wait. [Isaac is one of the smartest people I know…wouldn’t you agree? He’s one of my dearest friends and life editors AND he just happens to be my cousin too! Score!]
Yesterday’s Waiting Room
Since that conversation, I have spent more times in [literal and metaphorical] waiting rooms than I can count; waiting rooms at the doctor’s office, radiology waiting rooms, surgical waiting rooms, and of course the seemingly permanent “what if” waiting room in my mind. Can I be honest with you about something? Even after 3 years and waiting rooms becoming a frequent and normal occurrence, I still suck at the waiting. I spent a large portion of the day yesterday in the surgical waiting room and from the moment we checked mom in, they handed me a pager. I realize that [in their minds at least] it is an efficient way to keep track of the families while their loved one is in surgery and maybe provide some peace of mind and I can appreciate that sentiment, but I also kind of hate the pagers. I think I hate them because they tend to be a constant reminder of the waiting that I’m stuck doing. I can never decide if I want it to go off because these pagers are terrifying when they go off. Ask anyone that has been with me on a surgery day, I jump every time one of them goes off and it’s not even mine! You see, much like the waiting itself, when one of these pagers goes off, you have zero indication as to whether it’s good news or bad news and those moments between it going off and you walking up to the desk are the absolute worst. The truth is, this tangent about the pagers isn’t really relevant to where I’m going with this, but I just needed it to be known, I have a love/hate relationship with the pagers that is mostly hate until it buzzes with the end result of good news, at which point I love it.
Every time I find myself in one of the particularly difficult waiting rooms, I always reflect back on Isaac’s words from the very beginning of this journey. It takes a lot of mental discipline for me to refrain from walking through doors before I’ve been called to and I don’t always possess that kind of discipline. More often than I’d care to admit, I pace the waiting room (both literally and metaphorically) and I just walk up to the various “doors” just to get a glimpse of what they might possibly be if I have to walk through them. Yesterday, as I waited for the God-awful [but also glorious] pager to go off and let me know mom was okay and that I could see her, I had a new experience that added to the depths of this waiting room business. I have always been so blessed that I have never been alone in a surgical waiting room. There are always some of our people there and I can’t tell you how much “easier” the waiting can be when you have your people with you. In addition to that we have such a large network of people that walk with us in spirit and carry us in love in prayer. But yesterday I had a new experience…in the area we chose to sit in to do our waiting, there was a couple sitting there as well. It wasn’t simply because they were sitting near us, there was something else that just made my heart both ache and feel drawn to them at the same time. Throughout the day we learned that they were waiting for their 12-year-old daughter to get out of a 6-hour brain surgery. You guys, I can’t even begin to imagine their poor momma and daddy hearts, but I could see the weight in their eyes as well as the indescribable depths of love they have for their sweet girl. Through conversation I learned that the surgeon that was working on their daughter, was the only one in the country that could perform the complicated surgery that she needed. So, they traveled here from Kansas and will be spending the next 15 days post-op here in a nearby hotel. We swapped stories about how we were all too familiar with hospitals and doctors. We shared relief as they found out that their daughter made it through surgery and then tried to pass the time until they would be able to see her. We talked about the weather in Kansas versus the weather here [unrelated: I’m so glad I live in California] and what fun touristy things they had done so far. We shared the same relief when I came out of the conference room after talking with my mom’s doctor and learning that she too had made it through safely. Later in the day we ran into each and shared the most recent updates on our people and I will probably never see them again, but for those hours spent in the waiting room we became each other’s people. Because there is something that happens when you’re not only in the waiting room, but when you know the agony and pain found in that waiting. I don’t wish that on anyone because the truth is, it’s awful, but if you bear the scars of knowing what that experience is like, you have a unique opportunity to be present with someone else going through it.
I wish I didn’t know what it was like, but I do and because I do, I was able to sit in a sacred space with strangers from another state [that I never even exchanged names with, social awkwardness for the win!] and help carry their burden and they helped carry mine. And when I reflect back on the day yesterday, and the last three years, I woke up this morning completely overwhelmed by gratitude. I am grateful for my waiting room friends. I am grateful that both of our people made it safely through surgery. I am grateful for every, single, painful moment that I have experienced that allowed me to lock eyes with those sweet parents and share a “me too” moment. Friends, I’m grateful for the waiting room because even though I hate it, it has become the place in which I am always met by the unending love, sweet compassion, and all sufficient grace of The One that holds me in the waiting and knows what lies beyond the waiting.
If you find yourself in one of life’s waiting rooms today and you’re hating it, just know that you are actually being equipped to one day come alongside someone in a way that no one else can because of the waiting you are going through now. And if you’re feeling a little lonely in your waiting today, let me come alongside you and hold space for you in that waiting. You’re not alone friend.
*If you think of my waiting room friends from Kansas, would you say a prayer for them? Pray for their sweet girl and speedy recovery so they can get back home to all their people*
Thanks for always walking with us in the waiting,
Fearless Dialogue 