|
Compassion
I look at her and my heart goes out to her. Her beauty broken, but still so beautiful. Her face pained. Her arms thin. Whiteness. White as a pearl, fragile and fighting for breath. Her hands tied to the machine that goes round and round. Her forehead against the blue plastic of the handbike that goes nowhere. "Breathe", I say softly. "Breathe for strength". She sits there with an air. An air of composed despair. Later composed amusement. Eating my cake. My birthday cake.
She drops forward. Tries to straighten her foot in the wheelchair. She cannot. She needs to ask....To ask if somebody can straighten her foot. Beauty inspires. It is painful. Painful to watch. Painful to watch this beautiful woman. Her long thin paralysed fingers opening the strings of her purse getting out a lip balm. Balancing it on the handlebars of the wheelchair, then sqeezing it between het thumb and forefinger. It grips me. I cannot stop despairing. I watch like an imprisoned dog, feeling helpless to do anything for her.
We look at each other. Deep, profound; knowledgably of each others suffering. Her suffering greater than mine. However, she looks at me with the same compassion. Me sitting in a wheelchair with a screw sticking out again of my leg. We are in the same place. In the place of fighting spirits. Looking for strength from somewhere. From somewhere in order to move the machines that are meant to make us stronger.
Pure compassion.
Later I go to her room. My wristband breaks and falls on the floor. I notice it on my way out. I pick it up and hang it on her picture wall. It is for her. For her beauty within and without. It is the only thing I can do. The only thing I can do for her white pearl face and her blue pained deep jewelled eyes.
RCA
Amsterdam, december 2008
Lisette Spaargaren
|
