Familiarity in a strange and scary place

Between the ages of four and six, I spent significant amounts of time in a hospital. Last Friday, we returned to the same institution, Montreal's Jewish General Hospital, to visit my father. It was our five-year-old son who provided the most poignant reminder of what hospitals do to all who enter them.

When I was a munchkin, kids generally didn't visit folks who had been admitted. One parent would stay with the little people in the waiting room. We often didn't even go to the floor: we'd simply hang out in the lobby while our parents alternated visiting upstairs.

Times have changed. We felt it was important to give the kids a chance to see their grandfather. We felt they were old enough to understand that people get sick, that they go to hospitals to hopefully get better, and it's a good deed to visit them when they're there.

Little man clung to my wife when we first arrived. He was likely tired from the 9-hour drive. He was also overwhelmed by the strange sights and smells of this very alien place. By the time he got to his Zaydie's room (zaydie = Yiddish word for "grandfather") his very perceptive antennae were already up.

So he did what any little guy would do: seek comfort in the shoulder of the person who most matters in his young life - Mom.

After a few minutes of gentle prompting, he began to surreptitiously sneak peeks from his perch. His Zaydie told him a joke. He smiled and chuckled a little. His grip around my wife's neck loosened. His Zaydie told him another one. He laughed the laugh that only a little munchkin can laugh: from the belly. He let go of my wife completely, sat in the chair beside the bed and bantered with my father.

In the middle of a strange place, Noah managed to find a way to connect with his grandfather. By the time we turned to say goodbye, it didn't matter to him that he was in a drearily-lit hospital room. The packaging of where he was mattered less than the substance of who he was with.