Pity

A Whitecap, A Friend
By Denise Werner
CMH Patient

I once was alone with nothing to do.
I laid in that bed, feeling quite blue.
Until this friend came along,
You’ll never guess who.
He wore a white cap, and a real big smile.
He came in and asked,
“Can I stay for a while?”
He asked me then what I’d like to do, I said
“Would you tell me a story or two?”
He told me of sailing on oceans of green,
Telling me of things that I’d never seen.
Things were so big, I doubt they’d float.
He told me of stories and stories
And stories on end,
This guy with the white cap,
Was some special friend!

Project Whitecap
(Written Sometime in 1982)

During my time on a navy base, I was stationed outside Chicago. One Saturday morning, I was breakfasting on an ice cream sundae down at snipes castle when a female sailor (known in the vernacular as a “wave”) I knew asked if I wanted a ride into town. Flattered that Linda wanted to take me into town for the day, I accepted immediately. Instead of going to the student parking area, she led me back to the school building where a bus was loading. We got on and rode the bus to the Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. This hospital is a trauma center catering to seriously ill children and I really didn’t want to go in. Being on a four year contract to the Coast Guard and spending the first year on a Navy base, I was used to being tricked, so I gave it a try.

We were taken to a room and given a briefing on the origins of Project Whitecap (named after the hat sailors call the Dixie Cup), its goals and some talk of past success. The hospital administrator in charge of the project mentioned a few particularly depressed cases, a few we weren’t to disturb and told us about the children who had passed on during the week. The patients here are from all over the country, and it isn’t always possible for their families to be with them over a stay of several years. Some of the kids knew they would never be leaving. The staff was like you find at hospitals everywhere. They all cared deeply but there was so little time and so many patients. The kids all know that seeing the nurses and doctors means more of the trauma and pain of endless tests and treatments. That’s where the sailors come in. We had only one task, to play with the kids. I later came to feel I wasn’t doing my job unless we were getting into hot water with the nurses.

I had a tough time at first because my heart was filled with pity for these kids who’ve been dealt a losing hand through no fault of their own. The kids didn’t really take to me for reasons I understood only much later. I kept trying, several times I would excuse myself and go to the stairwell to choke back the tears. My date was cheerful the whole time, getting up a soccer game in the hall with boys dragging wheeled trees of instruments and intravenous medication bottles. She just giggled when the rather angry nurse shut down the game after two instrument trees tangled. It was much later that I realized all the kids were having fun in spite of the pain. Someone was paying attention to them for reasons other than more tests.

We went roaming the halls looking for one of the lonely kids on our list. All around us there was so much pain I could hardly bear it, but if the kids could, then I must also. The little girl we saw next changed my whole life, and I can’t even remember her name. She was about two and a half years old, and her family ran out of money and had to return home a month earlier, so she was very lonely. She was suffering from third degree burns over much of her upper body. Her head, torso and arms were wrapped in gauze which was oozing a viscous yellow fluid. The room carried the foul odor of festering sores. What shocked me most of all was the resemblance of her face (what I could see of it) bore to my niece of the same age. She smiled up at me and pointed at her Minnie Mouse shoes. In her tiny voice she cheerfully asked “pretty bow?” I looked down at her shoes and saw that Minnie Mouse was wearing a bow on her head, and as the nausea started to overcome me I replied, “Yes, that’s a pretty bow.” In the way of all very young children, she pointed at the knot in the gauze on her head and asked “pretty bow?” My throat closed down so I couldn’t answer right away. When I did manage to tell her that she had a pretty bow too, she knew I was lying. I could see the disappointment in her eyes, in my niece’s eyes. This time I didn’t make it to the stairwell before I broke down. Linda stayed behind, as I knew she must.

A nurse came along after a moment and took me to the nurse’s station. She sat me down and put me straight on matters of our project. These kids pity themselves all day long. They don’t need or want my pity to remind them of their condition. I must pause a moment before going into each room and remind myself not to accept their condition. I must see only their healthy side, exploiting this to help the kids forget for a few minutes just how bad things are. I resolved at that moment never again to pity the sick. You can’t hide pity, so you must do away with it entirely. Suddenly, I could play with the kids with the same enthusiasm as Linda and she deserves credit for helping me grow that Saturday morning in ways I might never have known about. I rejoined Linda in that little girl’s room and found that the little girl accepted me now as if the previous scene had never happened.

As Linda and I completed our rounds, I found that all the kids accepted me more readily now that I was seeing a different side of them. As Linda and I walked toward the El (elevated train) station to go on downtown, she pulled me close and made a confession. Linda had understood all along my problems dealing with the kids, and took me to see that little girl to help me work it out. She had even talked to the nurse, knowing that I would be leaving the little girl’s room soon after entering. It seems that courageous little girl has brought lots of sailors around and I owe her more than she may ever know.