If the Hospital Walls Could Talk
Earlier this week, I drove past the hospital where my Lolo (Grandpa) died. This particular hospital is also where I've visited other family members....except the hospital is no longer there.
It's leveled. Gone. Disappeared as if it never existed.
What happens to the stories that happened inside those brick walls?
I have random memories of this hospital as my mom worked at the after hours clinic sometimes. I brought my Lola (Grandma) there for appointments. I passed out at the lab there when I watched my mom have blood drawn after having my own blood drawn. And my Lolo died in that hospital.
The outpatient clinic still remains but the hospital was demolished several years ago. I remember my mom telling me about the scheduled closure, and I know that I can no longer see the hospital from my parents' beautiful backyard view.
However, I assumed that the building was demolished to make room for a newer, more modern earthquake safe hospital.
What remains is an empty field.
And millions of stories of the human spirit in the face of mortality and medicine. The breeze blows the blades of grass as ghosts traverse the field.
Many lives lost in a building that no longer exists.
I imagine that this is what it feels like to see the beaches at Normandy or to visit the empty but functional concentration camps in Europe. A quietness that belies the history. On a smaller scale, of course.
A small local hospital no longer exists, but there are stories and memories that live on.
If you have a chance, click on over to the Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine site. I had a short piece published in their More Voices section about one side of being a pediatrician.
