Despite their institutional habit of numbering every door in a consistent and logical fashion, finding one's way around the hospital from a multiplicity of entrances can be a real challenge. I made a single wrong turn in the basement on my way back from the parking office and experienced a brief moment of genuine pants-browning error when I realized I had no earthly idea where I was.
Thankfully I was able to retrace my steps and, with the aid of some helpful signage, recover my route without too much delay, but it is a legitimately confusing place. Fair enough, I suppose; it is over a century old, with buildings added on to buildings added on to expansions and so forth. In point of fact, it is not really a single building at all - the Walter C. Mackenzie Health Sciences Centre contains both the University Hospital as well as the Stollery Children's Hospital, and although the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute is decidedly attached to the physical site, it is its own entity.
Having travailed the quest in the basement and obtained the fabled Pass of Parking (Monthly) and returned without having to face the minotaur who almost certainly dwells at OH1.00 WMC, my routine parking spot has provided me with the opportunity to establish a routine, uh, route, on the way to Mum's room most days. I made an intriguing and synchronicitous discovery last week on that route which has a tinge of kismet to me that feels more encouraging than distressing.
I enter 4th floor through the Guru Nanak Dev Healing Garden, probably my favourite part of a place I have every reason to resent. It is a lovely space, donated and dedicated by Edmonton's Sikh community and filled with living plants, bright, natural light, running water and intriguing sculptures.
Working my way down a number of halls with all-too-common features, it is still easy to lose my way, but I know I have come to the right place when I see a painting of flowers next to the small lounge close to Mum's room.
It's a simple, pleasant painting of flowers. The white lilies stand in stark contrast to the dark background, giving the work a bit more drama than you might expect in such a setting.
I finally took the time to read the plaque on the frame a few days ago, and was tickled pink when I discovered the title.
The next time I walked past the painting with one of the girls, I said, "This is the painting that tells me I am on the right path to get to Nanny's room. It's a good waypoint for navigation because I can pick it out from down the hall, but I am really starting to appreciate it as a work of art as well. Do you know what it's called? Why don't you check the plaque on the frame?
That's a bit on the nose, isn't it?
Knowing that the beloved matriarch that the girls call "Nanny" is just a few feet away from a painting called Nan's Lilies, listening to the Statler Brothers on an ancient Walkman that Tara rediscovered, is almost too much.
Sometimes it feels like the universe is filled with patterns I either don't recognize or perceive, or am baffled by when I do, like symbology glimpsed in old wallpaper when you stay up too late and look at it for longer than you should.
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