Love and more

So the past few weeks I've been visiting a sick man that I wrote about in one of my previous posts here. I've known him for about a year and a half now. He has had some complications of diabetes, for which he has been hospitalized and he's been going in and out of hospitals for the duration of that time. Diabetes II is a horrible disease, and it is usually one that people bring about on themselves by way of their habits of life. Please, do me a huge favor, do not ever let this disease hit you. It is the mother of all other diseases, and people who suffer from it suffer as a result also from myriad other horrible diseases. It is just too bad - please do not do this to yourself, and don't let your loved ones do this to themselves. Do not eat too many cakes, cookies, chocolates or ice-creams. Do not drink the sweet poison Coca-Cola. Do not sit at your desk without moving every day. Eat fruits and nuts, eat vegetables. Do not eat too much of these things either - give your body breaks from eating, so that it would have time to digest. Digestion takes a lot of energy. When the body is constantly digesting food, it doesn't have much energy left to repair its cells and tissues and aging may occur as a result. Have breaks without food, enjoy feeling your stomach clean and empty for a few hours every day. When you do eat, eat in small quantities, do not leave your body full. The Rambam (Mimonides; Rabbi Moshe ben Mimon) said about a 1000 years ago that we should eat only about 80% of the volume of our stomach - leave 20-30% empty so that the stomach acids can reach every particle of food in your stomach and digest it well. In modern days we eat 120% of the volume of our stomachs, and a lot of processed complex sugars (which is a different molecule than the simple sugar molecules in fruits). It shortens our lives, quickens the aging process and worsens hurts our health.
Anyway, more on that at another time. In the meantime, back to that man. So he's been suffering from diabetes (he is Ashkenazi, and many ashkenazi Jews do not only eat processed sugars for desert, like cakes, etc., but they also cook a lot with processed sugar. Sugar is a spice for many of them). He had his foot amputated last week after suffering impossible pain there, and he's been going through a process of grief for his lost foot, even though it has given him such pain. Anyway, on Shabbat he has been in a much better mood, he was smiling, laughing, using humor, asking about everyone around him, making sure everyone is fine, etc. He has moved forward in the process of grief and it was very encouraging to see it. I've seen him in good days and bad days (in which he can become very angry and stubborn), but yesterday is the best I've seen him in the longest time. It has really encouraged me.
Since he is hospitalized in Sha'arei Tzedek hospital, far from where I live, his family has found (in the past few shabbats) a place for me to stay near the hospital, so I can sleep there and walk from there to the hospital. But for last shabbat all such rooms were taken and they had no place to place me at. I then found a hotel near-by, called the reception and was stunned to find that they have rooms (meaning, the hotel is not closed for corona), and that the rooms are very cheap now because of the corona. I gave this information to the family and they were thrilled to hear, they made arrangements for me to stay there. So I stayed at the hotel. When I came in, I saw that everything around was dark and there were no people there at all. I asked the clerk at reception how many guests they're having this Shabbat, and he said three... 3 guests. All this huge hotel was open for only 3 guests. And if I hadn't come, it would have been 2 guests. All of us were there to be near Sh'arei Tzeddek. Wow, I've never had this experience. I haven't been at a hotel in a long time, and I'm not crazy about hotel rooms (they all look the same, so cold and impersonal), but this time it was strange. It felt like a ghost-hotel - so empty, all the corridors were dark, the dining room was closed, the lobby was dark and empty. I didn't use the elevators, because of shabbat, so I was climbing up and down the stairs in this dark, dark, empty hotel. It was eerie.
The clerk taught me a shortcut that cuts the walking distance to the hospital by half and it was a huge help. Still, it was sad to see the hotel like this, and I still feel sad today, feeling like I spent a shabbat in a dark, deserted, ghost-house. Moreover, when I checked in to the hotel, I asked for a Shabbat key (a regular, mechanic key instead of the electrical key), but I didn't know I had to switch the room to a Shabbat Mode for the rest of the electrical appliances in the room (lights, airconditioning, etc.), so I closed some electric-circuits when opening and closing the door to the room. I feel very sad about it. When I realized that this is what was happening, I just left the door slightly open, but I had to open it once, knowing it would close the circuit, to go and feed him. After that, I just left the door open.
On the happy side, the patient that I visited was smiling, talking, he felt much better. He was eating (this is why I go there, to feed him, because he refuses to eat and someone needs to be there to encourage him to eat and feed him). He chose to eat only fruits that his family brought him, and I was OK with it. Fruits are OK even for people with diabetes, and they are very nourishing. It may be the best food they can have - light, easily digestable and full of vitamins and minerals.
What struck me most during those few shabbats that I spent with him was the special connection between him and his wife. Both of them suffer from retardation. They got married at a very late age, and yet there is so much love between them. He calls her with a nickname that he gave her, and she sleeps on a chair next to his bed every night of the week, refusing to leave his bedside. She sometimes feeds him fruits and he eats. She smiles at him and he smiles at her, they look at each other with so much love. She eats a lot (and unfortunately weighs a lot, which is not healthy), and he gives her his food, he gives her everything. It is just so moving to see. Both of them can have tempers and be angry, but not with each other. They are just so sweet, and I look at them and marvel - so much love, such pure love, without asking for anything in return, and with all the suffering that both of them experience, at least they have that. So many 'normal' (or neuro-typical) people don't know what love is - for them it is just an opportunity to receive, or take, anything they can have. For those two at the hospital it is nothing but that. There is so much devotion and dedication between them. I don't know many women who wouldn't leave their husband's bedside 24/7 and sleep on a chair (actually a sofa folded into a chair which she refuses to open and make it a bed). It is beautiful.
Anyway, I'm still sad after the experience at the hotel, but will bounce back to normal soon, don't worry.
Shavua Tov!
R.