Linoleum Chapel
The shock hadn’t settled in yet. A deep numbness took hold of every fiber in her body. She walked aimlessly down the hospital’s corridor, not looking at any of those who passed by her, heading in the opposite direction. The pale gray walls and the single gurney barely registered. She turned a corner and stood frozen for a long moment as she stared down the lonely corridor.
She was alone.
The last few hours had been a blur. Her mother was found, by a neighbor, unresponsive on the floor of her apartment. The siren of the ambulance wailed all the way to the nearest hospital. Doctors probed her mother’s unconscious body and seemed to speak in a foreign language.
Aneurysm.
Cerebral.
Slowly, back against the wall, she slid to the linoleum floor, wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her face in the crevice between her knees. Her mother was dying. The God she’d given up on in college was allowing it to happen. Why had she ever given herself to that song and dance?
“You okay?”
She looked up at a young man wearing a white lab coat. He was maybe a dozen years her junior, clean shaven, light brown hair.
“What’s it look like?” She spoke harshly.
He continued to stand before her, un-wilted by her abrupt response.
“I saw you leaving the emergency room as I entered,” he said. “You are here with Jane Willis?”
“My mother,” she answered.
“They’ve taken her to surgery. Cerebral Aneurysm, but you were probably already made aware of that.”
“And of her chances, thank you.”
“There is a chapel on the second floor if you’d like to…”
“Pray?”
“Sorry… I made an assumption. It was wrong of me.”
“Based on my mother being a minister,” she stated. “Sometimes the offspring of those who lead a religious life choose to believe their own truths.”
“And what do you believe?”
“That’s an extremely personal question.”
“Some people I meet believe one thing, some believe another. Some are tied to religious dogmas. Some say they are spiritual and thus commit to nothing.”
She lifted her head and glared at the doctor.
“And you think this is a good time to preach to me?” She asked louder than required.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know if there is ever a bad time. Usually we are more open… our hearts have dominion over our minds when we are filled with uncertainty.”
She turned her gaze back to her knees.
“May I sit?” He asked.
“No!”
He continued to stand, hands in the deep pockets of his coat.
“What kind of a doctor are you anyway?”
“General things… nothing specific.”
“A flunky in residency.”
“I wouldn’t make it sound so belittling,” he replied.
The corners of his mouth turned upward slightly. She raised her head and took note.
“We haven’t been that close, my mother and I, in a while,” she explained, uncertain why she felt the need to. “There was never any space for disagreement when it came to her thinking. After my father died she got worse.”
“Your father may have been a buffer between you and your mother.”
“You got it Sherlock,” she responded. “He was not bound up by church rules, as my mother is.”
“She is a pastor with a flock.”
“You’re not perhaps one of her sheep… are you?”
“No… not even of the same denomination.”
“My father passed away nine years ago. He was only fifty-eight. My mother said he was waiting for her and all that matters is being with him again. She never considers the fact that I am here. She should put some effort toward being with me.”
“Faith is important to her. It allows her to see clearly the road your father has walked down.”
“It has nothing to do with faith, just denomination. I mean… look at this world. We persecute Jews, we persecute Christians, we persecute Muslims and when each group gets any sort of reprieve from being the victim they persecute each other. Doesn’t sound like faith to me.”
“I guess we forget that we are people first… and quite imperfect.”
“Made in the image of imperfection.”
“Not really. I think once we might have been perfect. We blew the opportunity.”
“Yeah, I know all about the Cross and the Garden of Eden and everything that comes in between. As far as I’m concerned, we live and we die. What comes in between is of little importance when we are decayed bones and flesh.”
Silence enveloped them. Once again she met his gaze. Her lips were dry, she licked them and thought of getting up for a cup of water.
“It wouldn’t matter anyway,” she said.
“What?”
“Prayer."
“How so?”
“Haven’t in a long time. Probably wasn’t very sincere when I did. I’m sure that if I were to speak to the man upstairs… he wouldn’t even recognize my voice.”
“Not true. The man upstairs, the Father, God, Yahweh, hears every thought… and He gives special attention to those directed toward Him. I’d offer to pray with you, but I have the feeling you would prefer to pray by yourself. Make this hallway your chapel, if it’s where you need to seek Him.”
The young doctor turned and left. Despite herself she considered his words. Prayer and Faith were foreign invaders in her heart. Still, she remembered the warmth of being in a place separate from the world’s darkness. She lowered her head back to her knees and let a single word slip from her lips.
“Lord…”
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