![\"hospital](\"http:\/\/PineyMountainFoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/hospital-beds-300x171.png\")
Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room.\u00a0\u00a0 One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs.\u00a0\u00a0 His bed was next to the room’s only window.\u00a0\u00a0 The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.<\/p>\n
The men talked for hours on end.\u00a0\u00a0 They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.<\/p>\n
Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.\u00a0\u00a0 The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the descriptions of the activity and color of the world outside.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake.\u00a0 Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.\u00a0\u00a0 As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene.<\/p>\n
One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by.\u00a0\u00a0 Although the other man could not hear the band – he could see it in his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.<\/p>\n
Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months.<\/p>\n
One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep.\u00a0\u00a0 She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.<\/p>\n
As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.<\/p>\n
Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed.\u00a0 It faced a blank wall!<\/p>\n
The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.\u00a0 The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall. She said, \u201cPerhaps he just wanted to encourage you.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own situations.<\/p>\n
\nPlease note<\/em><\/h2>\n
I cannot claim credit for writing this story: it has been floating around the internet in some form or another for years.\u00a0 I came across it in my files recently and thought I’d share it here.\u00a0 I’ve probably tweaked it some – I tend to do that.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room’s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. … Continue reading “The Bed By the Window”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19588,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7237\/revisions\/19588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}