The tiniest grasp...

I got hooked on a show this past summer. I like to think of myself as a person who does not get hooked on shows. But it was addictive, I had a friend to watch it with every night, and it occupied my mind for an hour while I got ready for bed, so why not?

House MD. The thing about getting hooked on a show like that, is that I hate that's it a culturally "popular" show. I would rather have found some obscure show to get hooked on and told other people about it; discover a gem of a show that no one else knows about. But whatever, I didn't start watching it until it had already become a popular show. So, this "new" show to me is already a show that people have watched, loved, and gotten over. It's old news. But who cares. I like it.

House is a jerk.

You know what the attractive thing about jerks is? Well, at least for me? I love the thrill of getting to see a closed-off person have some spark of humanity or some spark of their inner self surface for the world to see. You only get to see it once in a blue moon. I've known some real special jerks in the past...I've put up with a lot, sacrificed enough, just to have the absolute joy of that time when they opened up to me. I don't know, it just makes it all the more special. To know that you created a comfort level with someone that they trust you enough to make themselves vulnerable for even a short amount of time. That the effort I put in trying to build trust, love that person, and care for them, really paid off. They really did feel true trust, true love, and that someone truly cared. To the point that they could take off their "mask".

Now, House...well, I don't know, you see him take off his mask every once in a while, but he quickly slams the door in everyone's faces when they try to point it out.

But tonight...tonight, I saw something from House that actually made my jaw drop. And it made my heart race. And my muscles tense. (I mean, for a TV show, how lame am I?) He was doing an open fetal surgery. Cut a woman open, cut open her uterus, and did exploratory surgery on the fetus. Then put the fetus back in the mom, stitched her up, and she birthed it a "second" time when the baby was fully developed. Before the surgery, House refused to call it anything but a fetus. He wanted to terminate the fetus because it was killing the mom. He didn't see it as a person. But when he cut open the uterus, this little tiny, stubby hand came out and landed on House's finger. And it seemed like time stopped. For the OR, for House, for me, for the camera. Those tiny little fingers just seemed to grasp at the tip of his huge finger, calmly pleading with House's stubbornness "I am alive." The camera swung to House's face. And it was like he was feeling for the first time the true beauty of human life. Like he was feeling and seeing someone that allowed him to acknowledge his own vulverability. Like, someone who didn't judge him for the jerk he was. Someone that couldn't understand his nasty comments. Someone who he couldn't brush off. Someone that pierced through his big huge barrier and gripped his humanity. The camera then swung back to those little fingers clinging to House. And just rested there. After the surgery, House referred to the unborn child as a "baby". Not a fetus. No longer a fetus. It was a living, loving, human being to him.

The last scene of the show, for a full minute, it showed House, on the couch, with the TV on in front of him, just staring at his fingers and rubbing his thumb over the very spot that was grasped by the baby. For a whole minute, it just showed him remembering that feeling. Remembering that moment.

Relating this to REAL life, I think there are things we do every day. They are part of our routine. People we meet. Computer programs we get to run. The sunshine and the grass. Washers and dryers. And we forget to see the beauty, reality, and utter mystery of them. House forgets to see the beauty of human life because he can rationalize, experiment, and manipulate the lives he deals with. But then, one day, it hits us. Something about a situation, a person's life, it becomes beauteous and real to us. It makes us take a step back from what we thought was "routine", and makes us see the real wealth and meaning behind it. We see selfless love. We se hard work. We see time poverty. We see missed opportunities. And we realize that what we have on a regular basis is oh-so-very special.