Being humane…

Every time I visit the patient guesthouse at the hospital, I realize how lucky I have been and how unpredictable one’s life is. I always return with a fulfillment of being able to meet the patients there and learn lessons from their lives.

When one patient can finally return home, there are many waiting to be put up at the guesthouse.

The guesthouse consists of all kind of patients. It houses permanently some old abandoned people, paralyzed people and a few kidney patients.

Lately there are 28 patients, including the old, staying there.

Most of the people there just live with a hope that some day they will be fine like anyone of us and be able to go back to living the life they once lived.

Jigme is one of the new patients at the guesthouse. He was painting a building, when he and his friend fell off. His friend died but he survived.

Jigme is paralyzed from below his waist and he cannot sit straight. Just a few months after this incident, his wife abandoned him and left their two-year-old daughter with him. He had no option but to give his daughter to some distant relative.

He is constantly worried about the life of his daughter but cannot do anything because his life does not seem stable at the moment. The only activities he can currently do are pray and contemplate death every day.

Hearing Jigme’s story made me realize and rethink about the institution of marriage. The though of a mother leaving her child with the husband and leaving them makes me angry but the thought of a mother leaving a young baby behind with a paralyzed father made think a lot.

But again I though this was a good example for us. Especially because it made me realize the impermanence of may things in life.

Every patient at the guesthouse has a heart-breaking story to share. It is not necessary to do something for these people one can just go and sit with them for sometime and that brings a smile on their face…