THE VEGETABLE GARDEN IN THE LOBBY

The Vegetable Garden in the Lobby

   Two weeks into my stroke and in a rehab facility, I found myself in what I've come to call the vegetable garden in the lobby.
   Although my body is destroyed, paralyzed on my left side and unable to do much more than think, sometimes I feel like I am still here, somehow. still alive.  Yet again, I found myself in this lobby of the damned, my company profoundly brain damaged women.  One they called 'Toady', who is in this thing resembling a hand truck and who spends every waking hour screaming bloody murder, and another woman, a de-animated Trish Takanawa from Family Guy who just stares out into space,  drools and makes these ungodly noises with her throat.  There's a few others there, equally unresponsive.
   I looked from these women to myself and tried to find the common denominator, the reason why we were all grouped together again.  I thought there had to be some mistake, that I was nothing like them, there was no connection except for where we were.
   There was a sweet woman who worked behind the front desk in the lobby.  She brings me my daily schedule for physical therapy every morning and always has a smile and a twinkle in her eyes when she sees me, something that showed me she sees me, that she sees past the diaper wearing, paralyzed woman in the wheelchair.  She saw me looking over at her and came over to me, to ask me if there was anything she could do for me.
   " Please," I asked her as clearly as I could, gesturing to my fellow 'plants' in the lobby, " I need to know what the common thread is, why we are grouped together every time I'm brought out here."
   For the first time, I saw her smile fade, the twinkle dim and she looked away.  With my one good arm, I reached up towards her.  " Please! ", I pleaded,  " I have to know, I need to know. "
   " Forgive me," she answered, " We go by statistics.  All the patients who have no phone calls, no visitors and no inquiring calls to the doctors are brought out to the lobby to help, so it wont seem like they're alone and have no one who cares. "  She looked away and apologized again.  I tried my best to smile and thank her.

   For a moment, I thought of using my cell phone later to call my room, to make believe I was someone else who cared for me, that I was important enough for someone to want to talk to me, to try and fool the staff that somehow, someway, I mattered to someone, that I was worth a phone call and the time that took.
   But that, in itself, seemed even more pathetic and tragic than finding myself in the vegetable garden for another day.  I realized, were it not for this room, this garden, I would never have noticed this mirror that sees far beyond any looking glass I've ever seen.  Maybe this was my secret garden and the reflection I was about to see has been my destiny all along.