My youngest daughter's first job was Pink Lady at the hospital in Lotus City. She was 15 years old and by simple persistence talked them into hiring her for the summer despite the age standard: not yet 16 and against the rules . This was 1978 and the nurses still wore white uniforms, and the other classifications were pink ladies, yellow ladies and blue men. Pink ladies were the ward cleaning staff and my daughter felt she belonged because we were hospital people connected by the pianist who worked as a nurse and me on the wards every day.
An esteemed partner of mine, Dr. G, was admitted to the cardiac ward with a mild heart attack and was being actively investigated on the ward where our pink lady worked. She chatted wit him every day as she cleaned around him and he seemed to be doing well as her nightly report to us noted. One morning I got a distressed phone call from her to tell me he had died. She had been sent by the head nurse to clean up the room where he had been. The bed had been stripped and the side tables emptied.She inquired about doctor G and the nurse replied in a doleful voice that doctor G had "gone". Then the head nurse looked down at her feet and left.
Body language! After the pink lady called me I phoned G's wife at home to give solace and invite myself over to commiserate. She said cheerfully that she would love to see me and so would G as he had been discharged. Dr. G was not a goner at that time. Words accompanied by inappropriate body language have the power to mislead. Words that have multiple meanings even more so. In contrast, even in the presence of a completely foreign language, body language will communicate. The face, the hands, the tone, the posture.
, the animation, will usually tell the aware what they need to know. We hear with the eyes as well as the ears. That's the real anatomy lesson.
An esteemed partner of mine, Dr. G, was admitted to the cardiac ward with a mild heart attack and was being actively investigated on the ward where our pink lady worked. She chatted wit him every day as she cleaned around him and he seemed to be doing well as her nightly report to us noted. One morning I got a distressed phone call from her to tell me he had died. She had been sent by the head nurse to clean up the room where he had been. The bed had been stripped and the side tables emptied.She inquired about doctor G and the nurse replied in a doleful voice that doctor G had "gone". Then the head nurse looked down at her feet and left.
Body language! After the pink lady called me I phoned G's wife at home to give solace and invite myself over to commiserate. She said cheerfully that she would love to see me and so would G as he had been discharged. Dr. G was not a goner at that time. Words accompanied by inappropriate body language have the power to mislead. Words that have multiple meanings even more so. In contrast, even in the presence of a completely foreign language, body language will communicate. The face, the hands, the tone, the posture.
, the animation, will usually tell the aware what they need to know. We hear with the eyes as well as the ears. That's the real anatomy lesson.
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