May 30, 2002

"Here," for the moment, is the fifth floor surgery wing of Scott and White Hospital in Temple, Texas. More specific, the end of the southeast hallway at a round table crowded in an alcove. Up the hall, white caps dart in and out of rooms, dragging chrome poles with tubes and bags swinging in the furor of activity. Young doctors in blue costumes topped with skull caps stop at doorways to dash off notes on drop leaf note boards before entering the patients' rooms to report.

I have chosen the small waiting space for protection. Understand, I am a minor figure in the act. Only here to support a friend while her mother has an operation. Thanks to a good heart and a persuasive hospital chaplain, the large, comfortable fifth-floor waiting room is off limits. An hour ago, the chaplain interrupted my reading to ask me to witness the signing of a patient's medical directives. Hospital staff or family members cannot sign as witnesses to these ominous but necessary documents, appointing a person to act in case the patient can only survive on life supporting devices.

Hoping to gain favor with the chaplain as a move to use her office as a place to write without the distraction of TV, I agreed to serve without considering the patient's past or his condition. Pause and consider the danger of becoming part of a stranger's fate. You don't know if the subject had been hiding from his brother-in-law, or has defaulted on his gambling debts. He might have a price on his head. But Mother always told me to be nice to those appointed to the cloth, so nice I was to this lady minister.

Along with an outpatient case worker, the chaplain led us to a small room occupied by an African American male in the bed and a large, tall lady standing at bedside. The chaplain squeezed into a space crowded by the feet of a second person sprawled in a chair so far against the wall she was out of our sight. The other witness and myself shared the corner extending off the bathroom.

The chaplain explained the forms, than began reading one. Suddenly, a strident voice cut the air from the doorway: "Roosevelt (the patient), are you sure you want her named on that form? You know I am still your wife."

We found room to turn toward the doorway, though the place seemed more crowded. She, the wife, looked to be a middleweight in top fighting condition, so mad the whites of her eyes glowed around black shadows. I hadn't felt so penned in since Jose slammed a crowd pen gate closed, shutting me in with a three-quarter humpy bull.

Roosevelt replied, "Yes." The mad, mad wife said, "Preacher, is that form legal? I'm Roosevelt's wife." The chaplain continued to read, ignoring the question. Roosevelt slid down in the bed, nodding assent to her questions. Mad, mad wife snarled she was going to go see a lawyer, but continued to block the door. After signing the forms, I watched a pigeon on the window ledge. The smartest pigeons known are the homing kind. Great on geography, they still only have an IQ above eight, yet I've been told pigeons won't nest in a loft that doesn't have an escape hatch.

We stepped aside to allow the chaplain the honor of leading us to safety. Mad wife started to let us pass, reconsidered, and commenced a harangue aimed at the chaplain, backing the two witnesses to the end of the bed. Roosevelt, the trouble-maker, slipped his right hand from under the sheets to rest on his appointed guardian's knee. Glancing over my shoulder, I caught the pigeon preening a bit, before flying to the open skies.

Once in the wide hall, mad wife lost her advantage. Later, the chaplain came around to say thanks. I told her to thank my mother as doing good deeds is not my nature. Furthermore, starting now, the Roosevelts and the rest of the world's trifling husbands can hire professional witnesses. For herself, she can pass a second collection on Sunday to pay for the services. And if she follows her true calling, she'll go back to Roosevelt's room and tell him life-sustaining devices aren't made to protect him from a jealous wife, especially lying flat on his back in a hospital bed.

So I am going to wait at the table by the stairway leading to the fourth floor in case Mrs. Roosevelt fails to honor the neutrality of witnesses. I've had a hard time concentrating on my book. Next time the passage comes up in church about leading us to still water, I am going to check which way the water flows into the pool…

May 30, 2002