The notebook · August 7, 2026

The Corridor

I spent more time in the corridor than in the room. That was the first thing I noticed on the way out.

There was an honest reason: the nursing round, the closed door, the nurse asking me to wait a moment. And a less honest one: the corridor is a place where I have nothing to say. Standing against the wall with a phone I am not really looking at, I am someone who is waiting — it is a role, and it is comfortable. In the room I am nothing but a visitor who is no use.

Because that is what I had not expected. I talked about the rain. Someone I love was lying in front of me with a drip in his arm, and I talked about the drive over, the parking, the weather. I heard my own voice filling the silence and I could not stop it. Leaving, I was certain I had missed something important.

That evening I came across the line from Matthew everyone knows: “I was sick and you visited me” (Matthew 25:36, World English Bible). I had always read it as an instruction in generosity. This time I saw the verb. It does not say: you healed me. It does not say: you found the right words. It does not even say: you comforted me. It says that you came, and it stops there.

What disarmed me is that nothing else is asked for in that whole list. Feeding, clothing, visiting: three plain gestures, no qualification required. Mine had been talkative and unsteady. It counted anyway. My shame, in truth, was about my performance — I wanted to have been a good visitor, not merely a visitor.

I have been going back since. I do not talk any better; I think I actually talk a little less. I sit down now, which changes everything: when you stay standing, you have already left. And before I go through the door I say one sentence inwardly, always the same, never out loud — God keep him tonight.

The corridor is still there. I spend less time in it.

In Manna I can carry a name on the days I cannot go.