I’ve waited long enough,… Is it time yet?

I stop everything I'm doing. I wait. Maybe she will do it. Perhaps she doesn't understand. Maybe she doesn't know what to do. Maybe, she wants to sing along, but she doesn't want to be rude and interrupt me. So, I wait. 

I give her a look of invitation. I am trying to get her involved. However, I am wearing a mask. She can't see my face. Are my eyes giving the right message? I want her to join us. While I wait, she looks back at me. I look at my partner, dr. tiny. Not hearing anything, I start again. This time as we sing, I slow the pace of the music at the end of the phrase,

"What fun it is to ride in a …one horse…. open ...sleigh…" I wait again. I look at mom; She gets it. Mom interrupts my pause, she shouts, "Ooooh!!!!! ….Jingle bells, jingle bells jingle all the way!”

Yes! she gets it. We want her to sing along with us. Now she knows that she can join us. Mom sings loudly with a lot of enthusiasm. The kind of adult enthusiasm that embarrasses middle school children. Mom sings, anyway. The child gives a begrudging smile to mom as she joins us to sing along. Now the room has two clowns, a mother and a daughter singing Jingle bells at full voice in the hospital's emergency department. Mom has a big smile on her face. The patient is laughing. Several of the nurses in the emergency department walk by the room and smile. They want to join the fun. When dr. tiny and I leave the room Mom stops us. She thanks us for the visit. She says, "I thought my funny bone was broken. Now I see it's just bruised." Dr. Tiny and I share a glance; this experience is why we do this work.

As I leave the room, I think about the pause before mom sang with us. It's easy to overlook these simple moments. But, it's essential to acknowledge what was happening. We could've performed a song for the patient and left, but I felt that mom wanted to be part of the fun. I noticed how, at first, she quietly mouthed the words as we sang. She leaned forward in her chair like she wanted to join the performance. She wasn't sure if she could. I put the pause in the song for that reason. It was an invitation to join us to become part of the fun. I'm glad she accepted the invitation.

I wish we could have more experiences like this. The health pandemic of this year has limited our ability to reach patients. The work has continued virtually online and with some limited hospital visits. However, it is far from pre-Covid "normal". We are in a weird pause, wondering what will come next. We've seen signs of hope with a vaccine. That said, it will be months before we can expect anything normal again. And so we pause, in a time of expectation.

I'm sitting on the edge of my chair.