Cancelled plans

Right now, I should be in Oxford, meeting with the surgeon who operated on Geoff. But just as I was leaving work to go to my appointment, I had a call to say it had been cancelled. He is running late. So the meeting will have to wait till he is not running late. Will it ever happen??? I have my doubts. I have been waiting for this meeting, might I add, since the Inquest last October. See? I can be patient.

The hospital people have called frequently all week, to ask for my agenda, a list of who I will be bringing, and all the rest. What?? I am taking no-one. Just me. I have no agenda, hidden or otherwise. I think they were a little disconcerted when I said...Look, all I want to do is to sit and chat for what might be 20 mins, or 2 hours. I don't know. I don't care if it is in the car park on the stairs. Or in the coffee shop. Or in an auditorium filled to capacity. That doesn't bother me. All I want to say is...I don't understand this. Can you please make it make sense? Explain it to me? I don't want politically correct speeches. I don't want measured or prepared words. I don't want official anything. I just want to talk to the man who could have some answers. Have a conversation. And that is probably why he is running late. I don't fit into any little box.

It is not going to happen. And I will never know, probably. Not in this life time.

So I came home. I had arranged to be in school to take my first 2 lessons today, and I get paid for a half day. So I decided to just come home anyway. I did point out to the hospital that I don't get paid when I take personal time, and this seems to be a strange concept for them to grasp. When I suggested they reschedule for the halfterm holidays, they said that a lot of their doctors take time off then to be with their families. Hmmmm.

This is not a cataclysmic event. Most people would have walked away long ago. I know a good many of my friends think I should do just that. Maybe they are right. But then, they are not me. I just need to understand.

I looked through the mountains of notes I had made for the Inquest briefly this morning. And thought, no I don't need these. Not now. They are impressive, but I know what I want to ask. It is simple really. Maybe too simple for hardened professionals to understand. The surgeon is in the business of saving lives. I know that, and I am the last person to want to take time from that, but he only operates 2 days a week. Funny that they should arrange a meeting on an operating day.

You know what my daily reading was this morning? It came from Proverbs 16. "God cares about honesty in the workplace. Good leaders abhor wrongdoing of all kinds. Sound leadership has a moral foundation. Good leaders cultivate honest speech. They love advisors who tell the truth. "

Now, while this absolutely applies to my work, it also applies to the man who is a leader in his workplace who I was meant to meet today. He is a professor, and head of his department. I can't make him meet me. Nor would I want to. Maybe God has some other plan. I will have to wait and see. He has been known to surprise me.