Waiting for my husband to undergo a surgical biopsy for bladder cancer this week, I spend a lot of time watching and thinking about the other people in the waiting room. A family of four, including a boy about 13, sat in silence, both the man and woman bent over and staring at the floor. Then their loved one’s doctor came out and said something to them, and they all straightened and brightened like flowers that had just received rain. In and out came the people, in and out came the doctors. There was a silly TV show on, a morning talk show whose hosts bantered back and forth. A young couple in their twenties arrived and were obviously familiar with the place and the receptionist. Why, I wondered? What brought them there so often? Another man, elderly, seemed to have gotten a news much different from that of the family. His doctor came out and conducted him to a “consultation room” just off the waiting room. I could just imagine the heaviness, the grief of what that man was hearing and considering. A hospital waiting room is a lonely, frightening place. But it is also a place that can wrench your heart wide open for others. (And when Andy’s doctor came out, he was very happy with what he had seen… or rather not seen.)