Secret Lives of People

Sometimes peoples lives are obvious by the objects in their rooms. It's something I ever get to see in hospitals. They might have a book or magazine which would show their interests but that is nothing compared to getting a look at their family photographs or seeing how they live.
It is incredibly intimate. After awhile you become somewhat immune to the human body, nothing disgusts you. You never become immune to the person inside, the stories they tell, how much they are in pain.
It's their houses that give people away. It shows the last time they were able to decorate or clean or able to be fully live their lives they way they used to. Their families are reflected in the plants and flowers, the pictures on the walls. Of babies going to school, then graduations or weddings. Partners, now gone, still stand in the faded photos next to the younger version of your patient. They display uniforms and clothing of times past, for finer times and different days.
They are human beings. They are loved and have been loved. They have seen the tough times and the good. These people might be your mother or father or auntie, they might not but they are to someone. Once a daughter or son, then father or mother, wife or husband, sister or brother. Now... Now they maybe alone and reaching out for a moment of your time or maybe just relief of their pain and a touch of comfort.