Cleaning a Wound.

I worked for a time in the early 90s, as a weekday live-in companion for a couple of doctors living in a large house on a small lot in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., caring for her elderly mother who could not be left alone because of mobility issues -- a gaping sore on her diabetic leg that was very slow in healing...

One of my duties was accompanying her weekly to her doctor -- a nice older Jewish man who had recommended they bring someone like me into their home rather than going straight to nursing care.  I sat with her, sometimes held her hand, while he scraped away at the pus, separating the healthy healing part from the yellow infection.

Have you ever seen a wound being cleaned?
The angry red is the body fighting back, much like a fever is a good thing too:  the body elevating the temperature in pushing back against the germs invading...

It's necessary to scrape away all of the poisons regularly, in order to give the healthy parts a fighting chance.  To expose the fresh pinks of the new skin underneath, hoping for dried over scabbing, but clearing away as much yellow pus as possible to help urge along the slowly healing part of a wound...

It looked painful, but as he explained -- perhaps more for me than her, as she was a patient, tolerating West Virgina country woman who had lived in her body for years and had surely known worse discomfort than a doctor gently scraping the bad from the good -- it was necessary to help along the natural healing.

I think the Republicans -- I'm not a member of the party, but an independent voter looking for the best options -- are undertaking the natural healing in the party now in the post-Bush years (sorry Jeb!) to address and clean away the bad, so they can hope for healing in the days to come.

Politics is like cleaning a wound, or a family addressing a social problem:  if you never get it out in the open, preferring not to change the bandages and avert your eyes, there's no healing.

This scraping and examining -- the angry reds and pus-sy yellow infection buildup (he always quit cleaning when he got close enough to draw fresh blood underneath) -- are necessary for the healthy scabbing and healing.

God Bless the healers, especially those gently undertaking the work that needs to be done to address and clean the wounds, when it likely would be much easier just to be in denial and pretend everything is fine under the temporary bandages while underneath the poisons slowly advance, eating away unseen at the fresh flesh.