That Stare...

Up to now, I still can't erase that stare from my mind...

Today I went to Tainan to visit my dad in ICU in the hospital.  He looked better, no more painful expression on his face except when the nurse was changing the sticky tape used to fasten the tubes.  I kept talking to him and hummed some classical music to soothe him.

While humming a lovely melody, to make sure I didn't disturb other patients in the same unit, I cast a glance at the elderly lady in the next bed.  It was at that moment that I caught that stare.  The lady was fixing her eyes on her son, who looked about 55 or 60, so tenderly and so helplessly.  With a tube in her mouth, she couldn't speak, yet she seemed to say a lot through that silent stare.  The tenderness in her eyes melted my heart, and the helplessness in there churned my mind.  I knew how eager she was to get off the bed, walk out of the door with her son, resume a normal life, and keep loving and caring about her family.

That stare, so tender and so helpless, is the window to the soul of a loving mother, who may have spent two thirds of her life so far pampering her child and, still not content, long for more years to see his life going ok .  A stare that assured her "kid" of the endless love she has for him.