Invisible murmurs

Have you ever looked into a stranger’s eyes and just known that person?

I’m not talking about that romantic crap . . . that whole, “Our eyes met across the crowded room, and then I knew . . . “

Because that’s just bullshit.

No, I mean a smaller deeper kind of knowing.

I was at the hospital with the girls the other day.  Waiting.  For those of you who have never been to the hospital?  There is a lot of waiting.

Bring something to read.

As I had not on this day.  So I watched the people instead.

My girls were both plugged into their music, and so I was alone.

With the people.

I am good at being alone with people.

On this day?  A couple caught my eye.  Both around 55.

They walked together into the waiting room, the husband solicitous of his wife’s every movement.  She did not appear to be in pain, but his attention was clearly required.  She was bent slightly into his shoulder as though seeking comfort and also refuge.

There was a tension about them, an anxiety . . . that just charged the room.

I know what you are thinking . . . we were in a hospital.  Stressful is the name of the game in a hospital.  This was something else.

And so I watched.

Watched as they made slow progress when the woman’s name was called . . .

Watched as they left the waiting area.

Waited.  Watched other less intriguing people go about the business of having small urgent needs addressed.

Waited.

Until it was just my two musical daughters and I in that room.

And so really?  I was alone.

Waited.

And then they reappeared, the couple who had caught my attention.  The door was flung open, and there was a flurry of harsh movement and anguish and pain.  The woman threw herself forward and out of her husband’s arms, and then collapsed to her knees, wailing about how the thing couldn’t be done.  She couldn’t do it.

And her husband bent beside her and rubbed small circles into the spot between her shoulder blades and reassured her with invisible murmurs tucked into her ear.

She gasped for breath and seemed to shrink in upon herself as her husband more fully enveloped her within his arms.

A few moments passed.

Her breathing calmed.

But when she finally spoke, it was with that ragged edge that too much panic and adrenaline gives a voice.  All uneven and sharp and painful to hear . . .

“You know I cannot allow anything in my mouth.  No one can put anything in my mouth.”

My mind conjured up.  Well, you know what my mind conjured up.

The husband knew as well, and he looked to meet my gaze.

I was frozen for a moment, because despite the fact that the waiting room was not that large?  I had clearly been too much noticing and observing their pain.  I had intruded, and I waited for the consequences as I met his eyes.

But in his eyes?  I saw no blame or anger.  I saw instead a pleading for compassion and understanding.  I saw exhaustion and heartbreak and an overwhelming love for this momentarily broken woman beside him.  I saw a lifetime of small accommodations and compromises and sacrifices.  I saw dreams that had slipped away and the smaller dreams that had replaced them.  I saw settling and making peace with that settling.  I saw loneliness and pain and fear and sadness.  And patience and kindness and so . . . much . . . love.

For this broken woman.

I saw a marriage.

I saw a very good man.

I couldn’t look away.

You know how time plays tricks?  I have no idea how long we stared into one another’s eyes.

Long enough to see.

I wonder what he saw?

When he looked into my eyes?

A marriage.

A very good man.

And a slightly broken woman.

Perhaps.