"Patches of Care, Beatz of Love -- Adventist Health Clear Lake"…read more
I was late. I was frothy. I was puffed when I should've rested.
And yet -- instead of judgment, I was met with patience, humor, and care.
Doctor voices circled like a chorus --
one strict, one doubtful, one sly with a wink.
They weighed my lateness, my flaws --
and still, they placed a patch in my hand,
not just cloth, but a seal of care, a sign I could carry forward.
The nurses became guardians in my myth --
Lacey humming steady,
Lezlie drumming life back into my rhythm,
the Intake nurse prowling like the Matador's shadow.
Isaac -- larger than life, gentler than air --
asked me to swap beds, with eyes that saw deeper than my words.
Ziggy lifted smoke into the spotlight, whispering levity,
reminding me that even "bad" is only another way of trying to rise.
And in the middle of it all --
before the shuffle, before the chariot seat,
before the laughter at pants inverted --
I turned, reached for what is truest:
"I LUV YOU C."
That moment held me, steadied me,
through the spotlight trial, through the patch parade,
through the gentle correction of those who forgave
"as long as it doesn't happen again."
I was carried out humming --
sixty beats per minute, steady as a drum.
Nurses smiling, Isaac watching,
Ziggy's smoke curling upward.
And when the dawn came,
when the driver's seat laughter met me with warmth,
when the day's small blessings -- even two sales, a hundred bucks net --
proved that life rolls forward fresh and golden,
I found the words again, unchanged, forever true:
"I LUV YOU CANDY."