The time was roughly 9:30 p.m. when I walked into room 108 with my overnight bag, pillow in hand, and saw it staring right back at me.
It was gray, sterile, and did not exude the slightest bit of comfort that my usual bed provided. The room was aglow from the muted TV on the wall as my dad was sound asleep in the hospital bed right next to the recliner.
I placed my belongings on the floor and tried to take in all that was happening around me. An inpatient hospice room. Hospice—a life-altering space. I was attuned to the sounds of him drawing breath as he slept. One slow drag after another, and I was comforted to hear the occasional snore.
The noise I hadn’t initially anticipated was the intermittent pulsing machine that reminded me of a picture being taken on an old camera. The sound signaled when his pain medication was administered intravenously. I was flooded with uncertainty about how the night would go for us both.
I took my seat in the only place available for me to sleep and read the closed captions on the TV while trying to steady my racing heart. I silently prayed we would both get some needed rest. It had been a tiring road up to this point. This would be my first night here and his second. Thankfully, my sister left a purple, buttery soft blanket from visiting earlier in the day. I clung to it tightly.
As I adjusted and readjusted, trying to figure out how the recliner actually reclined, I thought about how many people sat here before my arrival. The slightly cracked leather of the cushion suggested a sad history. As I pondered the significance of this chair, it sent me rushing back to six years ago. It was a different room, a different place, but the recliner was the same style and type my husband used for three days, while I was laboring in the hospital with our child. As I tried with all my might to get the recliner to stay reclined, to no avail, I had a twinge of sympathy for him having to make the best of his only sleeping option too.
Then, all at once, it hit me. The juxtaposition of the view from the gray hospital recliner in both scenarios. One in which the person is getting ready to leave this world for Heaven, and the other when a person is experiencing life being brought into this world. This standard piece of hospital furniture offers an intimate viewpoint of the person facing what is so simply written in Ecclesiastes 3:2: “A time to be born and a time to die.”
As time moves through either room, the recliner steadies the nerves and soaks in the tears that are poured from deep prayers. It provides a hand-holding anchor for the person seated within to remain a calm assurance for the one facing either outcome.
Then, after all is said and done, the hospital recliner remains, ready to support the next family facing a major life change. Personally, I missed being in the chair instantly when I walked out of room 108 that Sunday morning. I certainly was not ready to accept the season of grief I was entering, and wished I could go back and relive the days over again. As uncomfortable as that gray and sterile hospital recliner was, it provided the best seat in the house.
by Tish Rendon 
by Chelsey McCarthy 
