What now?
Today in the ER a man came in who'd been electrocuted. For some reason I think I heard he had been working at a construciton site when it happened. 1000V. He didn't survive. I wasn't in the ER when he arrived or when he died, but I entered in time to see four men lifting his bereaved wife from the floor (where I suppose she had collapsed) onto a stretcher. For several minutes her cries filled one side of the ER.
"No no! I don't want to live anymore! I can't go on without you!"
Shortly thereafter more family members arrived - three grown men and a young woman. They peaked into the curtain and, for an instant, my heart stopped in anticipation. The woman jumped back, buried her face in the shoulder of one of the men. She cried louder than the widow, and all three men were red-faced and teary.
This was my first time seeing (to some extent) death in the ER... or ever.
As I packed up my things to leave, I felt guilty for not staying. But practically, what could I do? The grieving have to work things out for themselves, at least for a little while. I would have no right to intrude. Yet I felt so powerless. Imagine how the doctors and nurses who couldn't save him felt.
There's a dead pigeon on the tracks at 30th Ave. It's been there for a while. Unlucky once, and now his body is run over repeatedly by thousands of Manhattan-bound passengers. I stood staring at the disfigured body, like I always do, waiting for the train home. I thought about the babies my friends are expecting this year, the baby born last month - three months premature. The weddings, the graduations, the illness. Constantly in motion, constant change.
As miraculous and powerful and efficient as the body is, all the magic of science that makes us (and pigeons) tick... over like that. There's something greater, even if it's just time.
I was helping the ladies in the admitting office with paperwork today. They are constantly answering phones, and one of them said "You know, when I get home I just want to sit in silence, by myself. If the phone rings, even if it's my mother, I just let the machine get it. I can't listen to her every day, talk about what she did, who she saw, same thing all the time. If her message sounds important, then I pick it up."
The woman sitting across from me said, "It's always important when your mother calls. What if it was the last time you spoke to her."
Think about that.
"No no! I don't want to live anymore! I can't go on without you!"
Shortly thereafter more family members arrived - three grown men and a young woman. They peaked into the curtain and, for an instant, my heart stopped in anticipation. The woman jumped back, buried her face in the shoulder of one of the men. She cried louder than the widow, and all three men were red-faced and teary.
This was my first time seeing (to some extent) death in the ER... or ever.
As I packed up my things to leave, I felt guilty for not staying. But practically, what could I do? The grieving have to work things out for themselves, at least for a little while. I would have no right to intrude. Yet I felt so powerless. Imagine how the doctors and nurses who couldn't save him felt.
There's a dead pigeon on the tracks at 30th Ave. It's been there for a while. Unlucky once, and now his body is run over repeatedly by thousands of Manhattan-bound passengers. I stood staring at the disfigured body, like I always do, waiting for the train home. I thought about the babies my friends are expecting this year, the baby born last month - three months premature. The weddings, the graduations, the illness. Constantly in motion, constant change.
As miraculous and powerful and efficient as the body is, all the magic of science that makes us (and pigeons) tick... over like that. There's something greater, even if it's just time.
I was helping the ladies in the admitting office with paperwork today. They are constantly answering phones, and one of them said "You know, when I get home I just want to sit in silence, by myself. If the phone rings, even if it's my mother, I just let the machine get it. I can't listen to her every day, talk about what she did, who she saw, same thing all the time. If her message sounds important, then I pick it up."
The woman sitting across from me said, "It's always important when your mother calls. What if it was the last time you spoke to her."
Think about that.
posted by Bibhatsu at 16:13
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