Life’s a Waiting Room, Installation, 2025.

Life’s a Waiting Room clinic, Installation, Images from The Local, 2025.

TThe passing of time feels different for caregivers. It moves in tandem with another person's time. It is witnessing. It is being present for another.

In medical waiting rooms, this time is often activated through advocacy and support. While waiting, caregivers take notes, ask questions, remember details, and document information that might otherwise be forgotten. The waiting room becomes a space where care is performed, not through action alone, but through attention, observation, and responsibility.

When we sit in waiting rooms, we often project ourselves into an imagined future: a diagnosis, a treatment plan, certainty, or reassurance. Instead, we are held in a space of possibility and uncertainty. We wait with hope, anxiety, anticipation, and fear; with thoughts of not today, but perhaps tomorrow. Waiting becomes a form of labour.

For caregivers, waiting is not passive. It is an active process of being present for another person while navigating uncertainty. Caregiving is the work of waiting, and the waiting room is the space that makes that labour visible.

Read my article on Life’s a Waiting Room at The Conversation.