Keep the curtain open

Keep the curtain open

Our old lady patient said, “I don't want to. I don't want the curtains to close. The window faces the garden, and we are on the 4th floor. Nobody can see inside. Please don't close the curtains. ”

Since the other patients in the ward he had slept that night did not close the curtains, he asked for help from our service nurse, and our nurse who could not convince our patient also conveyed the problem to me. The other two patients in the room did not understand our patient's insistence that the curtains should not be closed.

Our patient, who understood why I entered the room, greeted me by saying "I don't want the curtains to close, please don't insist" without opening my mouth.

It did not seem to be convinced.

I sat on the edge of her bed and tried to calm down. I was willing to pull the tulle curtain at least by suggesting the wishes of other patients in the room. He wasn't quite into it, but he was also aware that the game should be played according to the rule.

There was tension in the room. I thought to stay with them and calm down.

I remembered that our patient had children and grandchildren who came to visit and asked them. Especially when I started talking about his grandchildren, I realized that he softened and his face was smiling. She complained that her son and daughter worked very hard and that there was no time to take care of their own children.

- Everyone works at home. When my great granddaughter comes home from school, there is no one to meet. Whatever she finds alone in that huge house, she feeds her and sits in front of the television. There is not even someone to put hot food in front of my stranger and pat his back and caress his hair.

“But modern life is always like this. Life is fast and everyone is busy, what will you do? I think these problems are experienced in all big cities. ” He shrugged. He straightened and corrected his pillow. Then he looked again with angry eyes.

- It was a modern life, they should love it. What should I do with the modernity that leaves people alone and leads them away from others? Don't you see everyone alone, even children alone? Nobody knows anyone's trouble, even if he knows, he lays on his ear and ignores it. If you try to explain, there is nobody stopping and listening from the bustle of life.

- What kind of loneliness are you talking about?

Although I was intrigued by the subject, in reality, I aimed to make our patient talk and calm a little more and thus to remove some of the tense air in the room.

- Mr. Doctor, my son, he has gradually lost things over the years that people have not closed their homes, now they are waiting for them to close.

Then he talked about his childhood, the years when people lived in houses where the neighbor of the garden could see each other. The subject also attracted the attention of other patients in the room, they had forgotten the previous wheezing and raised their ears.

- First, the gardens were parking. We deceived ourselves that we got rid of the mud of the garden, we said apartment life, modern life. Everyone was taken to their homes. Nobody saw or heard anyone.

So what?

- Then it came to the balconies. They closed the balconies and added them to the house. The workplaces were also without a balcony. We deceived ourselves again that we got rid of the dust from the outside. The balconies opening to the neighbor, the sky and the world went to our hands. It was not enough, it came to the windows. Tulle was the curtain, the sun visor was the thick curtain, and the windows were covered. The windows closed when I called the blinds and blinds. We looked at our curtains where we poured so much money and said, "How nice it was". We got houses and workplaces illuminated by lamps that do not see the sun and burn like daylight. Everything happened slowly. We pulled all this to the point that we are modernizing.

What about now?

- Don't you see? Everyone fell into it. In those very modern houses with windows without a balcony and a garden, we turned into people whose only connection is to the outside. Though those who have read some more have internet and mobile phones, but loneliness is the same loneliness. They closed people and made them lonely. Now they just look in the direction they are asked to look at, and they expect them to live and consume there with the world they watch there and just consume it. I said it's modern, they should love it ...

One of the patients in the room muted the TV and then muted it. Our other patient could not bear and said, "Is this the case?" asked. Ours smiled, showed a picture of the landscape hanging on the wall.

Some are aware of the situation. He is able to hang pictures on his walls, to look in another direction from time to time, to dive into the pictures, to dream or to read himself by reading a book. But I am concerned for my children, my grandchildren. Which child did not dream with the clouds in the sky or the patterns on the carpet he was playing, did not play games? We closed such a life that now there are no carpets or the sky our children can see. Television, if any. Everything is ready, even dreams. We see a lot even dreaming, children.

He showed the window with his hand and said, “That's why I want my window. I want the curtains to remain open even if the windows are not covered even in the hospital room.

After these words, he took his book and glasses from the bedside.

There was no trace of the previous tension in the room. I asked for permission and left. It did not escape our attention that all the curtains of that room were open the next morning and the following days.

Moreover, despite the fact that our patient was discharged and all the time has passed, none of us went to close those curtains.

Dr. Mehmet Uhri