Conversations

A couple of days ago several of us were waiting in the hospital as the owner of my lodgings had surgery. I was struck by the way so many of our conversations went different ways than they would have in the US, with our “first-world problems”:

M: I really don't feel comfortable in hospitals.
Me: Why not? Oh, right, from the time you had a C-section?
M: Yes – it's just so horrible, having all these other women in labor next to you and people dying all around.

. . . . . . . . .


Y: I love to stop at different churches and pray after work. I pray all the time.
Me: I read a book by a monk from centuries ago, called Practicing the Presence of God. He would try to pray without ceasing especially while doing manual labor – he often baked bread or broke rock. [Okay, I think I melded Brother Lawrence's bread-baking with Henri Nouwen's carrying rocks at a monastery.  So I also think it might be time to re-read those books.]
M: Wow, breaking rock is really hard!
Me: Have you done it?
M: No, but a friend of mine, after her husband died, she couldn't take care of their six children. She started breaking rock. It's really hard on your hands, they get terribly cut up.
Y: Yes, that's true. You use a tool that really hurts your hands.


. . . . . . . . . . . .


Y: I was always scared to take care of babies, so my sister helped me out with mine. But then her husband died, and then she died, so I took care of her children.


. . . . . . . . . .


But maybe I was really in some alternate universe, because one of our other conversations started out like this:


M: I really wish that I had a flat stomach like you, Elizabeth.
Y: Yes, me, too.


Bwahahahaha! ;-)