From the 10th Floor

I’m at Ball Hospital watching as my grandma lies recovering from an infection in the bed. She’s in one of almost a hundred rooms on this floor, 10 more of which lie beneath us: a big place with a lot of moving parts. There looking out the window I see the school where I used to attend summer camp when I was a teenager. Next to it is the dorm where I would go to haunted houses in the fall. Across the street is the restaurant where I spent every Friday for lunch when I was in college. The buildings are the same, but I know the people have changed. I guess somewhere in the back of my mind, though, was the thought that after I left this town everything would go on unchanged without me. That whenever I came back it would be to the same old houses, restaurants, and parks. Somehow hospital rooms were never in the picture. From the tenth floor it all looks like still life. But I know that between the window and the horizon a lot is happening. A big place with a lot of moving parts. In the room behind me things are changing too, hopefully this time for the better. It’s good to be home for a while.