Two critically ill patients live in the same ward. One of them sits in bed for an hour every afternoon to drain fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the only window in the ward. The other has to lie flat in bed all day. They chat for hours.
They talked about their wives and families, about jobs, about serving in the military, about where they vacationed. Every afternoon, when the man by the window can sit up, he paints a picture of the world outside the window to his roommate. The man in the other bed began to look forward to this moment of the day, when his world was widened and brightened by the colorful life outside his window.
There is a park outside the window, and the lake in the park is rippling. Children play with model boats on the lake, while ducks and swans play in the water. Young couples roamed the colorful flowers, arm in arm, with the city in the distance under the blue sky. While the man by the window described the scenery outside the window in detail, the man on the other side of the room closed his eyes and imagined this poetic scene.
One warm afternoon, the man by the window recounted the procession passing by. The other man couldn’t hear the sound of the band, but he could feel it with his heart, because the man portrayed it so vividly.
Day after day, week after week. One morning, the nurse came to scrub them and found that the man by the window was stiff, and he had left peacefully in his sleep. She was upset and called the hospital staff to carry him away.
When the right moment came, another asked if he could move to the window seat. The nurse was willing to help him move over, and after he was settled, she left, leaving him alone in the ward. Slowly and with difficulty, he propped himself up on one elbow, trying to see for himself the world outside the window. Finally, he could enjoy the scenery outside the window with his own eyes. With difficulty, he turned slowly to the window beside the bed and looked out, and there was only a wall opposite…
The man asked the nurse why his late roommate could paint the window so beautifully, and the nurse replied that he Being blind, he couldn’t even see walls. “Maybe he just wanted to encourage you,” she said.
Shared grief is half sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled
