Christmas in Hospital

Our local hospital is all decorated up for Christmas, perhaps a tad too soon as it was all done prior to Veteran's Day. Which sort of over-shadowed the special services in the chapel for the veterans curently residing on its units. However, decorated it is! Garlands hung heavy with colored satin balls, angels in blue glitter, trees in alcoves with bright packages underneath, in front of the stained glass scenes of guardian angels, spreading mercy to the sick and injured. The gift shop is alive with red velvet, sleighs, bells, snow people and brightly sweatered bears. Very eye catching displays indeed greet visitors as they enter the lobby. Patches of Positivity to distract the visual brain as people begin and end their lives in quiet rooms, off polished halls. The click of approaching footsteps, herald more visitation from family, rustling cotton announces nurses making rounds and deep voices of Doctors giving detailed instructions of care, most of which passes by the door by which I wait. Distant rumbles of air Ambulances passing overhead, trucks passing by on the highway outside the window, and sparrows fighting over the last dregs of seed in the feeder in the garden, add to the quiet air, the sense of waiting, always waiting for the next stage of Life to begin.
Hospitals are busy places, with sadness and joy filling each corner, but always someone tries to brighten the loads we bear with decoration to cheer and reassure that Life still happens despite that which happens behind closed doors, in quiet rooms, off polished halls.