After a busy week, I found myself sitting by my father-in-law’s bed in the Intensive Care Unit. There was a plethora of screens and tubes around him and pain in his face. There was a raw vulnerability about him and that whole ward, which Andrew and I had not witnessed before.

He couldn’t tell us what he wanted to say. I am used to working with children who don’t have much speech, and to finding other ways to communicate with them. I could not figure out how to do this for him, in that short window of time, while I sat on that plastic chair amid the wiggling lines and flashing numbers.

We rattled off details of life at home and I tried to comprehend if he was following us or how it was making him feel. I know he longs for home. His thoughts seem to meander through his lifetime, and this made me think about all the things and people he has known and loved over the years. Andrew told him something seemingly inconsequential about our children and I felt the tears in my eyes, unwanted but uncontrollable. The tears reminded me of our wedding, when it was my father-in-law who welled up, as he welcomed me into his family.

The nurse helped me find a tissue, and she tried to reassure me. “It’s OK,” she said. “It’s our humanity.”

It was a beautiful sentence, spoken casually but sincerely. It stayed with me through the day. One word can encompass such a lot: Our humanity is fragility; vulnerability; love; kindness; and hope. Our humanity is what enables us to experience both pain and joy. Our humanity is physical and sensory, but it is also thought, emotion and spirit.

Humanity is a beautiful word.

It lingered in my mind when I messaged my sister and mum to thank them for looking after the animals. It stayed in my thoughts when my nephew and his girlfriend offered to cook for us and took our daughter out for a while. It was there when I read a kind, thoughtful email from an old friend. My sister sent a photo of my baby niece sleeping, and one of my brother-in-law smiling at the cats. They were pictures of humanity.

Then this evening, our son was ill and feeling overwhelmed and panicky. I comforted him, prayed for him, and stayed close, all the while thinking how raw and wonderful is our humanity.

I often read Common Prayer Pocket Edition, A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, which is based on the original Book of Common Prayer. I like the idea that, as the authors point out in their introduction, “we are not alone in the world…” and that others may be “praying these same prayers”.

The prayers I read most from this book are the prayers called Compline. They are prayers for the end of the day, for bed time. Today, this paragraph stood out to me:

“Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work or watch or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ, give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous, and all for your love’s sake. Amen”