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Show 116 Thayne comes into my room to check on me. As the door is opening, I hear music. Not the off-key but well-intentioned carolers that came by earlier in the day. But instead the soft plucking of a lone guitar. "O Holy Night." "Could you leave the door open?" I ask Thayne. The nurses are always hesitant to do that because of the risk of startle and the consequential requirement of so much time and medication. She looks at me for a long second then steps back to catch the door before it bumps closed and instead brackets it completely open. I can see the hallway from my bed. It is a rare sight. The guitar is not far but I cannot see it nor its player. Its quiet notes float down the hallway into my room. Sweet, soft notes on a well-tuned classical guitar, polyphonic cadences cascading into my miserable room. It is a holy moment. Thayne is smiling, looking at me, and I must be smiling also. The music continues as she takes my blood pressure and pulse, counts my breaths, checks the IV and adjusts my pillow. That done, she walks silently out of my room. She leaves the door open. He is now moving away from the unit, playing as he strolls. "Silent Night." Written for guitar on a Christmas Eve in Austria when the organ in the church was broken. I hum along, straining to hear the last notes as he leaves the unit. "Christ the Savior is bom, Christ the Savior is bom." He is gone. |
