The Sound of Kindness

When the music stops

An unexpected side-effect of spending days on end in the same room, in the same hospital, is that I have completely stopped listening to music. This is quite a change. Ever since I was a child I have always loved music. Be it punk, metal, rock, folk, indie, hip-hop, pop, jazz or classical, if it is good then the chances are I will like it. For two decades I would never leave home without headphones, and these were long a staple of commuting, training, working, and pretty much any other excuse to have them in. And yet now, nothing.

Discussing this with friends my initial guess was that my new disinterest in music is because I lack the old stimuli that used to accompany listening.  Take away exercise, commuting, or driving long distances, and you also take away the habits and prompts that listening to music were for me so indelibly bound up with. Absent the old triggers, the desire to listen simply stops. Or so I thought.

Then last night I thought I’d give it a try. Opening up Spotify I selected an old playlist of relaxing songs and began to listen. It was a disaster. The first song reminded me of cycling coast-to-coast with friends several years ago. The next brought to mind an old girlfriend I still think fondly of. Another made me think of driving into Wales to go climbing. Happy memories in and of themselves, no doubt, but torture at present because they immediately invite comparison with my current situation. And such comparison is brutal: it simply reminds me of everything that I’ve lost, of who I once was and never will be again. And I think that’s the real reason I haven’t been near music in months. Music for me is and has always been a memory trove. I subconsciously tag tracks and artists to specific times, places, and people. Not deliberately, it’s just something I’ve always done for as long as I can remember. Maybe everybody is like this, I don’t know. But right now my brain can’t handle the associations and the memories that pieces of music bring. They are just too painful to bombard myself with. That, I think, is the real reason I’ve completely stopped listening.

Switching off Spotify, I resigned myself to staring morosely at the wall. And that’s when one of the care assistants walked past and saw me.

Now the care assistants can be a mixed bag. They are overall essential to the functioning of a hospital ward, because although they cannot dispense medicine, they do countless other things such as taking blood pressure readings, giving assistance with washing, dishing out food, etc., without which the already swamped nurses would have no chance. However, the quality of assistants is highly variable.

At one extreme you have individuals who seem barely able to follow simple instructions or understand basic English, and who you wouldn’t trust to look after a guinea pig let alone your life. At the other, you have some of the most hard-working and dedicated staff imaginable. Take for example the young Bangladeshi man who is often on my ward. His work rate and attitude put many more senior staff to shame. For example, he once heard my call buzzer going from the other side of the ward and judging that it had been ringing for too long without any response, he came over to see if I needed help even though I wasn’t assigned to his care that day, and he must certainly have been busy. Seeing that I had slipped into a very uncomfortable position and badly needed straightening up, he simply did this without hesitation. A job that normally takes two people and 10 minutes he did by himself in less than five - and he did it well. He then asked me if I wanted a cup of tea and a biscuit. Because that’s how he always is - not just helpful and hard-working, but always with a smile on his face and thinking about how to make things less unbearable for the patient. (It makes me shudder to think how little he is paid. More generally, I can’t help but think that a good cure for Islamophobia would be to make bigots spend a few weeks in an East London hospital. The care and dedication of Bangladeshi Muslim men in particular has been a revelation to me. I presume that many are at least in part motivated by their faith, a fact that militant atheists ought also to consider.)

Anyway, back to last night. The care assistant who saw me staring dejectedly into the half distance is definitely one of the good ones. I know this because she greeted me the very first night I got shifted onto the ward one Friday in July at about 10 pm. Born and raised in Huddersfield, but of Jamaican descent (as she later told me more about), she declared upon hearing me speak that I was a “fellow northerner” and she was therefore taking me under her protection because we northerners needed to stick together in the madhouse of London. She’s been good to her word in the months since.

Seeing that I was in a bad way last night, she popped in to my room and began to chat. Technically I wasn’t one of the patients she was assigned to, but she took the time nonetheless. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about, but it didn’t matter. She got me speaking and within minutes my mood began to lift. Almost without me realising she also got me into a sleeping position, helped me brush my teeth, and fitted the splints I must I wear on my hands overnight. All that was left for my nurse to do was administer my evening medication and blessedly switch off the lights. I was thus able to get to sleep early, rather than waiting for who knows how long until finally being allowed to try and black out (success on that front currently being my favourite part of the day - oblivion is bliss).

It might not seem like a lot, but the 20 minutes of kindness she showed me transformed the bleakest of moods into a calmness I would otherwise not have been able to attain. It was a much needed reminder that for as long as there are people like her in the world, despair is not the only outlook worth considering. I will no doubt listen to music again one day, just not today. And when I do listen to music again the times will be happier, and the memories brought back will signal joy, not pain. Plus, one part of my life that will not be tied to music, and which I intend to put behind me permanently as soon as I can, is the shitty one I’m living through right now. Silence is exactly what it deserves.