Not:
You can do this.
Not:
Don’t let the past win.
Just:
Want to leave?
I considered it.
Then said:
“No. But walk with me.”
So he did.
We passed the corridor leading toward the inpatient floors.
I did not visit my old room.
I did not need to conquer it.
We went to the project meeting.
We discussed lighting, acoustics, patient privacy, wayfinding and
materials.
Ordinary work.
At one point, a nurse complained that the proposed family waiting area
gave visitors too much visual access to patient-room entrances.
I looked at the plan.
She was right.
We changed it.
Privacy mattered.
Choice mattered.
Safe spaces mattered.
Maybe every building I designed after Gregory carried a little of what I
learned in that hospital.
Not fear.
Attention.
There is a difference.
When the meeting ended, I stood outside in the sunlight.
Thomas asked:
“How was it?”
I thought about the woman I had been in that bed.
