Parable of the Day: The Man by the Window
There were two
terminally ill patients in a hospital ward. They had completely equal
conditions, with the only difference that one could look into the window and
the other couldn’t but he, in turn, had a nurse call button near his bed. Time
went by, seasons were changing… The man by the window told the other patient
about the things that he could see: the rain and the snow, the trees covered
with light sparkles or spring haze or green leaves or yellow and scarlet
leaves… He told him about people and cars on the streets—the entire world
beyond the hospital walls.
One night, the man by the window felt bad. He asked his neighbor to call a nurse but the latter didn’t. The man died.
The following day, they brought another patient to the ward. The man who had stayed in the ward before, asked the staff to lay him by the window. He finally saw that… the window overlooked a solid gray wall and nothing else. He kept silent for a while and then asked his new neighbor:
“You know what? If I feel bad at night… don’t call the nurse…”
Translated
by The Catalog of Good Deeds
