I hate navigating hospitals. It’s weird that you’re kind of left to your own devices to get to where you need to be. Sure, they direct you but in a large hospital like Albany Med, you can get disoriented quickly. Walking the halls, smelling certain smells and passing patient rooms, just knowing there’s sadness and loss behind most every wall, it’s all very sobering. Some of the most difficult and intimate times in a person’s life happen there. While every one of us, I imagine, hates hospitals, they are necessary evils and, thus, cannot be avoided for long.

***

When I finally found my way to Mike, he was in the critical care area of the Neurosciences Unit. It felt like I would never get to him. It just took so long to drive there, find parking and then actually make it to the unit and floor where he was being cared for. I desperately needed to lay eyes on him. But I was anxious and a little bit scared, too, not knowing quite what to expect after hearing the nurse’s description of Mike on the phone.

I was directed over to a bed behind a curtain and, there, he was, awake and talking to the nurse in the room. I immediately was struck by how normal his appearance was. Save for the hospital gown, it was still my Mike. He seemed to sense my presence before I said anything. He reached his arm out.

I quickly approached his right side and said, “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry this happened to you” as I leaned over to kiss and hug him. And then we cried.

I wiped the tears from his eyes and I said, “We are going to get through this.”

He said, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t marry me?”

I scoffed and said, “Well, you didn’t ask me yet, you jerk.”

The nurse standing by him laughed and he did, too. And then he said, “I’m going to, I’m going to.” I held him for a while in silence, not wanting to let go.

It was well past five o’clock by this point, and maybe even past six. I said, “I’m calling the boys right now.” He nodded.

Then, I had a thought. “Or maybe I should call your brother first and have him tell the boys. Do you think it would be better coming from Steve?”

Mike said, “You tell them, please.”

***