While I sit among the patients, friends, and families, I become one with them. We are drawn here for a common purpose. To fight.
We fight and plead and cry and hope. We resolve to win or we resolve that we will not.
There is no prejudice here. Cancer strikes and works its bidding without regard to race, color, or creed.
On this trip, I met a young black man. I see pallor under his lovely dark skin. I sense he is very sick, and I can tell he is tall. We exchange small talk- as if this were not a place for larger words. I say to him, “I can tell you are going to be tall when you stand up”. But when he stands, his height is compromised by obvious pain. I watch his wife move close and offer her shoulder for support, and I know this is not just a physical gesture. She is white. But here, in this place, that makes no difference.
We are one here, and our fight is common. Two recliners down from where Dad is seated, there is a Hispanic man. Today, they are drawing a unit of blood from him. He sits without emotion while the life fluid leaves his body and traverses a clear tube to a clear glass bottle. His blood is red. His eyes bright and noncommittal. His skin is brown. This disease has no prejudice.
I marvel even at the Staff here. They are also of every creed, color, and race, just as the patients and their families. Day after day, they care for the patients who come here. And day after day, the Staff wage war against the cancers.
I marvel, too, at the families while they sit. While they watch. Perfect guardians. They watch for signs of defeat or victory. They watch the medicine pumps and small appetites. They keep watch, mostly watching their loved ones. This place is common ground, and I sit among them. Waiting. Watching. Sharing common ground.
Carrie Bergener
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