Killing hands

At the beginning of my day, I am given a list of all the hospital's patients and their room numbers. I know their name, their age, their gender and a one word description of their diagnosis. That's all I know about them before I knock on their door and introduce myself. There are, of course, some mild surprises: a 100 year old man with excellent hearing next door to a 47 year old dying woman. I used to see the age plus gender and calculate a judgement, but now I know each room contains a surprise; each person I speak to is very different.

 

Today, I met a man who murdered with his hands.

 

Age: 66

Diagnosis: Vomiting

 

He had been at the hospital a few days, so I knew he was probably dehydrated or else something malevolent hid beneath that diagnosis. (That's happened before, too. A diagnosis of pneumonia often hides lung cancer and other vicious ills.)

 

I walked into a dark room and he turned on the light. My eyes adjusted and he looked like everyone else. I'm becoming accustomed to this daily prayer walk with the patients and they look alike now, they are old or young, or black or white, or male or female. It's only in the talking to them that I know them and in the praying for them that they become people again. I hear their stories and I pray with them and they matter to me. They are on my heart, now, and I remember their details.

 

His details are on my fingertip.

 

"Hey there, young'n, young one, young girl, young woman, howyadoin?" he said.

 

I laughed and answered him that I was well.

 

"Well, well, yep, I'm swell, I'm Ronnie, or Ronzo, or Ronald. I get to go home today," he said. "I'm feeling a might better. Can you keep a secret?"

 

I smiled and nodded.

 

"I can't eat the shi ... crap they call food. (You said you was a preacher lady, right?) My wife's going to get me some REAL food at McDonald's," he said. "They said I can go home once'n I can keep some food down."

 

I prayed with him then, that his food would stay down, that he could go home and get some rest, and that God would bless his wife, who was a support and an encouragement to him.

 

"Hey, hey, you got that right," he said, when I finished praying. "My wife's been taking care of me for 40 years. Course, she is my second wife. Found the first one in bed with some dudezo when I got back from my first tour. Dropped my AWOL bag on the ground, threw a silver dollar at the dude humping my wife, and I said, 'You just bought the bitch.' I walked across the street to Dadzo's house and, boy, you want to talk about surprised? My dadzo was so happy to see me home. I showed him that guy getting into his car across the way, holding all his clothes and shit in his hands, and I said, 'Dadzo, we're getting drunk.'"

 

I laughed with him.

 

"So, I got drunk for the next two days, with Dadzo and Moms, and then I decided to take another tour over there. Fucking Viet Nam. See, over there, you knew who the enemy was ... I fucked up some Mama Sans. I did some evil shit over there," he said and the room got colder and darker. 

 

I looked at him seriously and nodded for him to go on. In the short time I have been here, I have heard confessions, and this seemed like his.

 

"I couldn't help it. It was just ... See, it was just these fuckers in black pajamas over there, and we were bad motherfuckers, you know? I used to fucking staple an ace of spades to their heads after I did em. It was my calling card," he said. 

 

I swallowed and nodded again.

 

"It ain't no different than what they're doing over there now in Iraq," he said. "But now these guys come back and they're fucking heroes. You know what they called me? A baby killer," he spat.

 

It was quiet for a minute. I waited for him.

 

"Oh, well. You keep serving God. I'm a believer, you know. I seen heaven when I died," he said.

 

"You have? Tell me about it," I said seriously. He looked up at me.

 

"Come here," he said. I came over to him. "Give me your hand." I gave it to him.

 

He took my finger and placed it on his forehead. There was an indentation that before wasn't visible but my finger took in its details. It felt like two plates of his skull didn't quite mesh together there.

 

"That's where I got shot. Dunzo. See this hole on the side? That's where the bullet came out. I went to heaven. I saw my grandma. See, I ain't seen my grandma since I was nine or ten years old. I saw her and she hollered for me to go in the gates. So, I put my leg in and I heard the most beautiful voice and I saw this hand with a, well, like a square railroad tie? In the middle? I saw this hand like to push me out and the voice said, 'Ronald, I am not ready for you.'"

 

I was standing very close to him. My finger still remembered the hole in his skull. He smelled like a spicy aftershave and his steel grey hair was greasy.

 

"I felt my soul crash back down to earth. When I woke up, a colored woman was putting a tag on my toe. I popped up and she screamed, 'You're alive!'" He laughed loudly. "I will see him again someday, but God ain't ready for me just yet, young lady," he said.

 

I laughed too and soon after made my exit.

 

I look at my hands, hands that held my baby, hands that pray, hands that destroyed my marriage, and I think about murdering hands, healing hands, about people and their stories, and I seek. I seek God in this. This is life. We are all a part of this creation, His creatures, and He loves us so.

 

Equally so? So much He sent His son to die for us. To suffer and die. An ace of spades on the forehead of someone's mother. God, where are you in this? In the redemption, in the forgiveness, in the grace and renewal. In the details, God, I seek you.