The Kindness of Strangers/Heidi Mills

It goes without saying, although I have said it a lot, how much we appreciate the kindness of our friends and acquaintances.   Flowers, baskets, books, goodies for the hotel room, kind words on the blog, texts, Facebook, emails.  We are staying in this hotel because a friend and neighbor gave us a zillion Hilton Honors points.  And THIS IS the place to recover from brain surgery, believe me.  Thanks to friends at the university, last night we were given the royal treatment of awesome restaurant food brought to our hotel – delivery charge and gratuity included. 

But I am also struck by the kindness of strangers.  Our doctors and nurses, for example, have been so much more than professionally kind.  Most of the medical professionals we have encountered in Baltimore have been so genuinely personable and so real.  Our doctor, Jon Weingart, was in the hospital on our last day.  He didn’t come in for early rounds, and so we were afraid we might miss him.  We really didn’t want to leave until we got his OK.  It was scary to leave after only two days.  The incision, the medications, it was a little overwhelming.  But he came and reassured and did a lot to assuage our fears.   There was a tiny awkward moment at the end when he was leaving and Heidi needed his touch.  You know what a hugger she is.  She certainly couldn’t get quickly out of bed and go to him.  So she stretched out her hand toward him.  He was carrying stuff.  He was already backing out of the room.  He could have stepped out.  But he stopped.  He came forward and looked into her eyes and they held hands for a second or two.  There was a palpable sense of relief and calm that passed from him to her in that moment.  She told me about it.  There was a connection that she needed.

There have been small kindnesses everywhere.  The first night we got to the hotel, after a pretty spooky ride from the hospital, Heidi was settled into the room.  I had to schlep all of our bags and equipment to the 18^th floor.  There was a bellman, Brendon, big guy, dreads, wide smile (a kid really) who was doing his thing with the luggage cart with me.  I told him the story in brief.  When we got to the room and he saw Heidi – still unshowered and puffy – only two days after surgery - he was Godblessing her all over the place.  “You look fantastic…  God is Great…  Everything is gonna work out, you’ll see…”  Just what the doctor ordered.

The guy who delivered our food from the restaurant last night must have known something about our story, because he looked me in the eye and wished us every good thing.  In the space of our 30-second encounter, he just exuded kindness. 

We bought a gift certificate for our surgeon from a fancy shmancy place here in Baltimore.  The folks at the restaurant had it delivered to our hotel for us.  The driver – his name was Guy – shook my hand and clapped me on the back and told me the missus was going to be just fine.

When we walked into this hotel the night before Heidi had surgery and were just checking it out to see if we wanted to stay here, the guy at the front desk, Mike, took a sincere interest in us.  He was all about getting us a super low rate, making sure we had a little fridge up in the room, making sure that we had everything we needed.  Heidi still had metal tabs all over her face for surgery the next morning.  We probably looked like a couple of fraidy-cats.  He took our information and, even though he won’t be working here at all during our stay, we don’t even have a way to say thanks, he left a note at the desk that we be upgraded to a suite – no extra charge.

It seems everywhere we go, and we haven’t been far, people have gone out of there way to be extra nice, putting forth that extra bit of effort to make Heidi comfortable, to tell her how good she looks, how her smile lights up the place.  We have learned a lot about how to treat other people in similar situations.  These are life lessons, things that we will not forget.

Heidi is still snoozing peacefully.  Yesterday wasn’t fantastic.  She felt woozy, a little bit sore.  I think that there was a bit of a honeymoon right after getting released from the hospital.  I don’t know if she was still relatively pain free from all of the lingering anesthesia or what, but the last couple of days have been more uncomfortable.  But she is sleeping great, reading a little, getting on the internet, watching a little tube.  In some ways it is a little boring, but that is probably just what the doctor ordered as well. 

I want to thank you for reading this crazy travel log/memoir/doctor’s report.  You can tell if you look at the little graph at the top that there was pretty big increase in people stopping by the blog recently.  Out of the hundreds of posts I have written, this adventure with Heidi has been by far the most widely read.  Usually I get excited if more than one person leaves a comment.  Heck, lately I am lucky to get any comments.  I’ll be sure to put Heidi’s name in the title when I write more about this and her.  If it doesn’t have her name, it will be more of my usual rambling: memoirs, fiction, lyrics, social commentary, stories about school, family, etc. 

Before I sign off, I wanted to mention that more than one person has said that reading some of this has made them tear up.  A writer loves to hear that, right?  It has always been a goal to write so that someone laughs out loud, thinks deeply about something, reconsiders an idea, or cries.  I know that says more about how you feel about Heidi than these words.  But still…  thanks for reading.  And thanks for caring about my dear one.