Take A Breath and Trust

Last Thursday, as I left the ICU Unit, where I had been offering the nurses a treat from my bedpan filled with candy (a process I call “feeding the troops”), I heard a woman’s voice calling to me.

“Clown, Clown, come back.”

I turned around to see a tall, stately woman rushing after me.

“Oh,” she said, “I’m so glad I caught you. Would you please come visit my husband? He’s been a clown for 30 years. His clown name is Freckles.” Her words were rushing out. “He’s in a coma, and he’s dying, and I know it would mean so much to him if you would visit.”

“Of course.” I said. “Thank you for asking me. Lead the way.”

When we entered the darkened room, his wife went to his bed, and touching him on his arm, said, “Dear, there’s a clown here to see you.” And then she moved behind me and sat down.

The patient’s eyes were closed. His mouth was open and a tube protruded. In fact, a labyrinth of tubes and equipment surrounded him. His breathing was labored and noisy.

Let me pause here to say that as hospital clowns we are schooled to focus on the patient’s eyes when we enter a room, to try and read what the patient may be feeling—fatigue, boredom, fear, or anger— in order to determine what we can do to help. I am accustomed to looking past medical apparatus and into the patient’s eyes.

In this case, he was not capable of giving me a cue. I felt afraid. What could I possibly say or do?

In those seconds of doubt, I heard the voice of my clown teacher saying, “When you enter a room, take a deep breath, not from up high in your chest, but from way down low in your belly. Let your belly go soft and expand like a balloon. Then exhale slowly. As you are exhaling think of how glad you are to see the patient. And trust that an insight will come to you.”

I took a deep breath. To my surprise, these words came. “Hello. My name is Heart Throb. I am a clown with orange curls and hearts on my cheeks. I know that you have spent your life giving laughter and love to hundreds of people through your clowning. Today I am here to return that love to you. So you will feel surrounded by love.”

The man let out a breath that sounded like a growl.

From over my shoulder, his wife said quietly, “That’s the noise he makes when he wants to let you know he hears you.”

I nodded my head and turned to her,“Do you think he would like it if I sang him a song?” I asked.

“Yes, definitely,” she answered.

I sang words my mother used to sing when I was sick. And then I said my goodbyes.

Walking down the hall, I asked myself what I would want from a fellow clown if I lay dying?

I decided whatever inspiration came from a deep breath and a loving heart would be a comfort.

What is a Hospital Clown?

“A clown is a poet who is also an orangutan.” I don’t know where I first heard this statement, but it has stayed with me.

At first, I took it to mean that a clown must be creative and as agile as an orangutan. Then I did a little research.

Orangutans are large, gentle, intelligent apes that live mostly in trees and swing from branch to branch using their arms.

Inventive, they have been known to use found objects as tools; for example, they use leaves as umbrellas against the rain. They also use leaves as cups to help them drink water.

As the hospital clown “swings from room to room,” she applies her wit to found objects. She places a fish sticker on an I.V. bag, turning it into an aquarium. Or if the patient is about to leave the room for a walk with his I.V. on a pole, she may say, “Oh, I see you are taking your girlfriend, IVY, for a stroll.” If the patient is sitting up in bed, breathing through the mouth into a plastic cylinder with mist coming out of it, she may ask, “Say—Is that a Cuban cigar? How are you getting by with smoking in the hospital?” If she sees a triangular handle hanging from a bar over the patient’s bed, she may ask, “Hey—are you practicing acrobatics to join the circus?” For a patient waiting to be taken downstairs for an x-ray, she may offer to do a cat scan right then and there, in which case she will pull a cat mask out of her bag, put it on, and scan the patient head to toe. She applies her orangutan curiosity to everything she sees.

It has been said that a poet is one who is gifted in the perception and expression of the beautiful. I would add that a poet also sings in the dark times. We think of poets as being creative dreamers who are driven by a need to share their thoughts.

Enter, the hospital clown. This clown has a need to share love and smiles. As she goes room to room at the hospital, she has no idea what she will discover: a man without legs, a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s, a happy patient who is going home, a patient who thought he was going home but who is being transferred to a nursing home, a patient who has been waiting for too many hours for surgery, one who has returned from surgery and is still medicated, a deaf patient, a blind patient, a gentleman sitting in his chair doing cross word puzzles—well—you get the idea. In each patient she meets, she perceives beauty. That’s the poet in her.

Most people, in the course of their daily lives, do not meet orangutans, which are endangered, or poets, who are thriving, or clowns who practice their compassionate antics exclusively in hospitals.