At This Moment

I roll the mass of her flabby overweight body
over to the right side of the bed with one hand
trying to minimize the pain I'm causing her hip.

I've just given her insulin and a Beta-Feron injection
to hold her MS in check, with my free hand I'm now
changing her soiled underpadding and removing
her XXL-diaper to clear and to clean up there.
This is but our second evening seeing each other,
yet I'm acquainted with her shame and quiet disgust.

As I finish arranging her position in her fresh covering,
she expresses thanks in her humble and sincere manner,
excusing and accusing herself for putting us to such pains,
requiring such effort of us. My time at this moment is costing me,
I'm under plenty pressure at this moment with traffic and waiting clients
with all their self-concerns and expectations of promptness.

There in that livingroom with all its mess and disorder, two cats hiding about
and everything in such disarray you'd need a navigator to find anything.
At this moment I have nowhere else to be, and nothing better to do:
I drop everything from my coordinating, overseeing mind, I have no "tour"
at this moment – I have only her, and her alone. For this one moment.

I take her extended hand in mine, as one does in parting, but hold it.
The flat of my fingers presses into her palm, communicating firmness
without pressure, my other hand enfolds our grip with gentle emphasis.

Locking eyes with her, holding our gaze, breathing merely and speaking
in a very matter-of-fact tone, at this moment I reply.

Frau D, I tell her, if any of us had a problem with your condition, we'd have not
taken this line of work, had we? This is not only daily stuff for us,
this is just body stuff, this has nothing to do with you, it's your suffering.
You are not our problem, you are not my problem. Traffic, and time pressure,
and where I need to be in the few minutes which won't be enough anyway –
that's all my problem, not you. You are not my problem. I'm glad
to make my visits to you, I'm glad to see you, I'm glad to do this.
And I like you, we like you, you are in fact a very loveable person –
and even if you weren't, so what. You are worth it, and we love you.
I love you.

"Thank you for that," she answers, "but we've only just met,
you hardly know me at all."
That may be, I reply, that may be. But God knows you, that's quite enough.

It took all of barely two minutes, but was entirely sufficient
at this moment.