The Bedside of Robert Lowe

It was a cold winter's eve at Jackson Hospital. Christmas was right around the corner but it was business as usual for us. The walls were beautifully decorated with garland and light, but the tree in the lobby was most beautiful of all. It was very big that year, and with the lights and tinsle it almost looked like a beacon of hope for the sick. They were old lights, the ones were if one blew they all went out, but they were much more luminous than the newer sets. In a way they reminded me of the old man in room 302. It was not his room, it was bare as a dried river bed, but the man himself. Robert Lowe was man who had seen much. He was eighty-two years old with hair white as the snow. He was always friendly and greeted the nurses by name every morning. He was terminaly ill with an unknown disease, and noone ever came to visit him, but somehow he was still just as cheerful as the big man himself. Now that I look back he was exactly the opposite of me. I was very bitter back then... I had bills I couldn't pay, my wife had left me, and my work seemed duller than ever, and even though at the time I was faking sincerity, I'm glad I listened to that old man. Every night I would sit by his bedside and listen to his stories. I worked the night shift and while everyone was asleep, I would sit with him as he enraptured me with his stories. I even remember the first one. The one about the mines...