The world would be a better place . . .

After my adventures in the ER circus, I was put in solitary confinement  for four days while my white blood cells recovered.  Private room with a ominous black ulltraviolet germicidal canister air filter and the door closed at all times.  I was occasionally let out to walk the yard (hall) with a trustee (nurse), and I haunted the halls that Halloween weekend like a spectre in my long white hooded robe and white surgical mask.  Bored, I approached two orderlies with hand extended.   The treat was the shocked expression on their faces when I said "trick or treat" and demanded they hand over candy.  I am entertained by the stupidest things, I swear!

Steve visited daily and the only other person able to storm the Bastille was my steadfast and incorrigable friend, Shelby. We stared at  each other over surgical masks and it felt a little like Mad Magazine's spy vs. spy!  But, because isolated as I was, the nurses and aides took pity on me and came to chat.  (I later began to suspect my room was a nice safe hidey hole for a few minutes respite from their other duties.)

And this brings me to the point of my discussion.  The chats were reveletory.  Matthew--tall, slender, articlate, and elegant aide of African American descent, is raising two young boys, apparently on his own.  He spoke to me about how much he believes in the "Power of the Tongue" when raising children.  I had not heard the phrase before, but I immediately knew what he meant.  He was very passionate about the powerful effect of words on children--the impact of mean words, disapproving words;  and the importance of kind and instructive ones.

Rachel, 23 with impossibly unruly curls and darling freckles, is concerned with raising her 15 month old.  She was raised in a rigid religious home where everything was done on schedule, by the  book, with only time for work and study.  She was not allowed to play with other children!  After  three years at college doing what she had always done (adhere to the rules and the schedule) and working three jobs, she decided to break a rule and have some fun.  Her famly disowned her and would not speak to her for 2  1/2 years. She wants her son to "Know God" but not her parents' version, and said she could see all the havoc wreaked on the world in the name of religion--if your family tuns their back on you because of religion, what hope is there for what they will do to strangers?

Cleo, who had been to South Africa to do good works, commented on the overwhelming feeling of tension, threat. mistrust, and anger that pervades the areas outside the groomed colonial remnants of Cape Town, and are especially palpable in Johannesburg.  She was able to spend time with Moher Theresa's order Siisters of Mercy and was greatly affected by thier humanity. She would like to return and help again with women's health care and especially HIV education, to counteract the shaman's' influence on Aids which is having devestating effects on women, girls and infants.

There were more stories, but this small sampling made me think our world would be a better place for children (and everyone, in the long run) if it were run by the values of oncology nurses: kindness in words to others, acceptance, education, peace, respect for those smaller, weaker, sicker or needier.

But then, if they left to heal the world, who would I have to talk to?  Ah, of course, my husband and that other spy !