SLIPPERY | Paul Hostovsky
I remember my illness fondly
as a time when my illusions
about just about everything
were gently set aside, the way
the nurse’s aide gently set aside my reading glasses
and the book I was trying to read in spite of
the pain—putting them just over there on the table
out of the way of what was more important just then,
which was the undeniable fact
that I needed to be washed. For I hadn’t
washed in several days, married as I was
to the bed, the commode, the drainage tube,
and the pain. Yes, I was married
to the pain, which had a distinct element of monogamy—
it refused to share my attention
with anyone or anything, not even
with other pain. But finally the bed bath
got my attention: the nurse’s aide gently
lifting my hospital gown—an indignity,
a humiliation at first—as I lay there helpless
and pale and naked, the soapy wet
washcloth sliding across my chest and belly
and genitals, my thighs and calves. And when it got to
my feet, taking each of my toes one at a time
with an almost this-little-piggy tenderness,
that’s when my resistance melted away
and in its place an acceptance and a warm gratitude
gripped me so tightly that I couldn’t stop whispering
the little choked thank-you’s and bless-you’s
escaping like too much air or too much
love from my dry, constricted throat, which was
still sore from the breathing tube. Slippery
though they are, I have tried to hold on to that acceptance
and that gratitude, which came from or were part of
my illness, which I no longer have but remember
fondly, now that I am well.
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