I used to walk through the halls of hell

When I was 20-years-old, 14 years ago

I worked as a nursing assistant at a nursing home

I showed up in my lime green scrubs

I had a curiosity for what everything was

I felt so optimistic at the get-go

It was my introduction to the medical system

Oh! Was it grim!

15 patients assigned to me

Every simple task for them was a difficulty

Unable to swallow or talk, limp limbs in bed

Results of injuries to the head

Stroke had claimed many

Electrocution another

Dementia and Parkinson’s for others

So many lay contracted in their beds

One woman had cloudy eyes that stared at the wall
“Moma-moma-moma-moma”, she’d call

A deranged man talked to himself behind the curtain dividing his room

His roommate prayed, “Lord, take me home soon”

One guy was thin as an egret’s leg

He was rolled over for wound care

He might as well have been dead

What a scare – a gaping wound in his sacrum

I looked right through to see his spine

No fat, muscle, or skin to protect him

It was a crime

Plastic tubes in the stomach fed some of the patients

They couldn’t swallow

Others depended on electric scooters and wheelchairs

As one side of their bodies wasn’t even there

One nurse told me, “Existence is hollow”

Urine and stool was the aroma

One floor had all patients who were in a coma

Plastic tubes connected to their throats

No family ever came to see them for there was no hope

The halls were dark

Every few hours insulin shots

Just before small plates of mush

For all these people my soul felt crushed

I’d peek out the window of one room – see the blue sky and green grass

Think of sweet freedom and health

An intact nervous system, moving arms and legs – what wealth

Could these patients go outside if they asked

I did my best for them: bathing, dressing, brushing their teeth

Getting them out of bed – what a struggle

And to the table but with no one to meet

Did those mute patients have any memories

Any hopes or shot at freedom

Death visited some

And I strangely felt relief

Nothing but Fixodent and Depends to bequeath

I couldn’t help but think what will become of us

How do I stop this progression

Three years working there I thought about life’s lesson

I kept going to school

I wanted to get out of that nursing home

I graduated and did

I wondered what, if any, life those patients had before lived

Before the decay ran amuck

I myself didn’t want to get stuck

Ever since I’ve been running from it

Dependence, disability, disease

That place can’t be anyone’s destiny

So I keep running and studying

But I find we’re all sick at the core

And I don’t know if any of us will escape it

I do know we were all wonderfully created

Maybe like that window I peeked through

There is vitality and color and freedom

On the other side

Maybe there is a place we were made to roam

No sores, no wheelchairs, no feeding tubes

Rather, all alive and made new

With One to meet

With moving arms and legs and dancing feet

When we’re finally, eternally home