Angels and Messiahs

"...'Cause angels and messiahs Love
can come in many forms.
In the hallways of your projects
or the fat girl in your dorm.
And when you finally take the time
to see what they're about,
perhaps you find them lonely,
or their wisdom trips you out..."

--from Saul Williams' poem, "Talk To Strangers."

I used to be afraid of them
those and the other,
maybe scared that I'd become like them
or maybe they are more foreign
than someone from another country
who speaks a different language.
Maybe they seemed discarded and unloved.
Like maybe those places
are human trash cans.

But I've come to other understandings.
For there are treasures,
angels and messiahs,
passing us as strangers
everyday.

Until last week,
one woman hadn't opened her eyes
for months.
Though she lives in another world
her eyes are bright,
vibrant,
and often somewhere else.

I heard a conversation
between two different folks
with dimentia
each trying to interpret for the other
to me
using their own language.

I've met folks,
intelligent, beautiful, and clear minded
whose bodies are being peeled
ever so slowly from them,
whose wisdom,
does indeed,
trip me out.

I lift them from bed to wheelchair
wheelchair to bed
make sure they eat
sometimes feed a few.

"I'm going through my second childhood,"
one woman told me.
"I get my diaper changed.
Somebody wipes my ass.
I get fed."
We laugh at the tragedy
and secretly wonder
what it is all about.

These folks need constant care...

But this job about kills ya.
Constant shortages of staff
cuts orientations to pieces
and folks are often figuring out the perameters of the job
by the seat of their pants.

Stress levels so high
that many folks have walked away.

Folks who work doubles,
that's 16 hour days,
on a regular basis
and manage not to go insane...
or do they.

Only a handful of toughies stick it out
through all the insanity
of being short staffed,
short supplies,
things not working,
etc.,
and still,
at the end of the day,
these folks who depend on others
to remain alive
are still alive,
fed,
cared for,
Loved by the employees,
have eaten,
been changed and cleaned,
etc.
We somehow
make it through it all.

I can't imagine
a gang of thugs,
at times
cold hearted and murderous,
tough enough to knock you down
and kill you if they need,
and I can't imagine
any of them
tough enough
to wipe some adults ass
or deal with the types of messes
that need to be dealt with
in these situations.

Of course...
I can't imagine me
or anyone else in this profession
trying to stand down a gang of thugs
either...
except...
of course...
their mothers.

It ain't easy
it doesn't always work
but somehow,
for the most part,
it always works out.

Health care
is the best and worst job
you will ever have.

Nothing is more rewarding
than making a persons life a little better...
a little more liveable.
Nothing is worse
than the heavy stress level,
the massive amounts of work,
the constant need of a few,
the demands...

And the staff,
the workers,
are angels and messiahs, too.
And we have all come here
to push our way through
to some other life...
that, or
push someone to the dining room
in their wheel chair.

We pack up our "thank you's"
and our "fuck you's"
and walk to the time clock
as others pick up where we left off.

We wash it off in the shower
crash on the couch,
and sleep it off
like a bad drunk.

The kind of wheel chair I'd like to see every resident at my work have. Kind of evening the playing field, as it were.