Deep Bows to Health Carers

Photo by Jair Lázaro on Unsplash

Recently, an ICU nurse in my city posted a list of things overheard from her ICU. It broke my heart open. For all the cautious optimism, it’s pretty ugly at the hospitals in my state.

You see the holes where people used to be,

spaces between the morning clouds,

shadows in the crooks of the trees

as the sun fills the day with light.

Watching — at the end of a life that will never happen again,

(at your complete loss of innocence and the exposure,

naked and vulnerable,

unable to pretend anymore that things are fine

that there is any such thing as normal.)

“We become a part of our patients' families,

and when they lose a loved one, we lose,

we grieve, too.

Then we have to move on.

We have more patients who are waiting for our care."

"It's sad. It's stressful.

You take it home with you.

You try not to."

Sinking and trying to trust that lifting will happen,

maybe not before you choke and drown, but it will happen,

Maybe your back is the one someone else steps on

to rise above.

Maybe that is some kind of grace.

Some kind of pinpoint light in the darkness.