On Christmas, it became negative 8 degrees outside here in my place; it’s too cold for me to go out, so instead of enjoying a perfect White Christmas outside, I decided to spend at home with my faithful heater which has kept me warm.
And I thought of an old woman I met in the hospital where I used to work.
Working in a hospital as a medical technologist was my first job. It sounded cool to work in a medical lab wearing a white lab coat and helping sick people, but several years later I found it quite tough. Besides, I am terrible in science except biology, so I guess I am the last person who is fit to the job. Despite the hard time being a medical worker, there was one patient whom I still remember as a good memory.
It was the third year of my first job when I met the old woman. I think she was in her seventies or so. She was one of the patients who had to take some tests every month, but she was different from other patients and didn’t complain about it at all.
At that time, I was in charge of blood tests, counting blood cells with a special machine, classifying white blood cells with microscope, measuring of blood coagulation time, etc. That was my favorite area among all medical technologies. However, measuring of blood coagulation time was not easy for me. I had to cut patients’ earlobes with a small lancet and absorbed the blood coming from their earlobes with a piece of rounded filter paper to measure the time until the bleeding finally stopped. When I was a student of Medical Technology College, I practiced every technique of medical tests I was required to learn with my classmates, using ourselves as samples, so I knew being cut an earlobe was painful. Actually, most patients who had to take the test complained a lot when they saw me come to bring the equipment for the test, “Do I have to take the test again? Is it really necessary?” I felt sorry for them but could do nothing but give them the pain, which was their doctors’ order but not my personal favorites.
When I met her for the first time, of course I gave her the pain cutting her earlobe; surprisingly, she said “Thank you for visiting me. Please come to see me again,” with a broad smile. I was startled to hear her words because it was the first time to be thanked by giving the pain to patients.
I went to see her next month because her doctor ordered me to do the same test, and she thanked me again. She always spoke gentle and smiled at me. While I performed the test, it was usually less than five minutes, we chatted. She talked about her family and how she had spend her life which sounded quite tough, especially the experience of WWⅡ. I also told her about my life, what made me happy and what made me sad. Then we became friends and chatted every time I visited her for the test. Sometimes, I dropped by her bedside even though I didn’t need to give her the test, like when I went for a patient in the same patient room of hers. It was a peaceful moment to chat with her. She sounded like a grandmother to me.
“Be happy all the time. You deserve it.”
She had kept saying that words to me. It was like a spell. I was not sure what disease was eating her up, maybe rheumatism or something like that. Even though she was suffering from her own disease, she sounded cheerful every time I saw her and kept cheering me up. If I was emotionally challenging, she had let me cry beside her and just listened to me as holding my hands, as if absorbing my sadness.
About a year later, I decided to leave the hospital to get a new job. When I told her that I would leave the hospital, she congratulated me on my new departure, with the same broad smile she had always given me. I started to work in the new workplace, which kept me busy and faded the memories with her away, but she never vanished from my heart. I visited her once when my mother was hospitalized in the same hospital, but after that, I hadn’t had a chance to see her again.
“Be happy. You deserve it.”
Her words still sometimes echo in my heart. As seeing the snowfall which covered everything in white, I thought about her and what she wanted to tell me. I'm glad to have met her and if it was possible to see her again, I would like tell her that “Thank you for coming into my life. I’m trying to be happy, just the way I am…”
