“You Made Her Visible”

This Be There story, which goes back almost 30 years, comes from Harry Geist at ChartHouse Learning:

 

When I was 19, I worked as a nurse’s aid at a large metropolitan hospital. My main job was to take patients back to their rooms after surgery. I often used the patient transport elevator outside of the surgical suites, and it was while waiting for the elevator that I first saw Evelyn.

 

Evelyn worked in the hospital laundry, and a couple of times a day she would collect the dirty laundry from the surgical suites. She was a tiny woman, slightly bent over, and looked to be in her seventies. Evelyn had such a quiet way of going about her work that if you weren’t looking at her you might not notice she was there.

 

The first few times I encountered Evelyn by the elevator we exchanged smiles. Finally, I said hello and asked her how her day was going. This opened the door to many brief but warm conversations with Evelyn over the nine months I worked at the hospital.

 

I learned- she had a son who lived on the West Coast and a daughter who lived on the East Coast; she rarely saw them and missed them terribly. She asked me about my life, my ambitions and my dreams. I can’t recall all the details of our conversations but I will always remember how much I looked forward to seeing Evelyn each day.

 

One day I mentioned to Evelyn that this was my last week at the hospital. On Friday, when I arrived at work, Evelyn was waiting by the elevator. She handed me an envelope. I slipped a card out of the envelope and when I opened it a five-dollar bill slid into my hand. The message on the card read, “Thanks for caring about me. Love, Evelyn.” She stood on her tiptoes, gave me a kiss on the cheek and walked away.

 

Awash with emotion, I walked into the physician’s changing area. As I sat down, my father, a surgeon at the hospital, walked in and I told him what had just happened.

 

We sat together in silence for a few seconds. Then my father said, “You know, this is a huge hospital with hundreds of employees. Evelyn is the kind of person who can disappear in a place like this. You made her visible.”

Who will you choose to make “visible” today?