Hospitals

Particularly with urgent and life-threatening conditions, the patient and family arrive with a paradoxical juxtaposition of fear and hope: fearing the worst, yet hoping for the best.

The medical team, collected and placid, applies the best of civilization’s medical know-how and technology with amazing effectiveness, striving to preserve the quality of life and often defying death to do so.

Initiated in a surgical or Intensive Care waiting room, strangers share their respective ordeals, comfort each other through the setbacks, and celebrate the progress.  Tied by the vulnerability of being human, so exposed within the hospital, they create community.

I can think of no other institution where humanity’s highest accomplishments and aspirations, the goodness of people, and spontaneous community play out in so many unsung stories every day.