It’s so frustrating not to know how their stories end. I check them into the emergency room, and sometimes I’m able to pick up on how things end up just because I’m around and paying attention. But more often, my shift ends. I go home. Or they’re transferred away to ICU or surgery. I get to see the dark night of their soul, but never learn whether their story was a comedy or a tragedy.
Maybe I’m just too tired, maybe there were just too many real emergencies in the last seven days - some weeks are just heavier than others. But regardless, I walked back trough the parking garage today, amidst oblivious pigeons, and all I could do was yearn to finish their stories for them.
Sarah, when your husband came in code green, I know I told you that it was just something we do for all motor vehicle accidents, but I was lying. It means “trauma” and they reserve it for serious patients. Its an all-hands-on-deck page for backup. What was he thinking - not having a helmet on? Motorcycles are dangerous enough and I know you say he wasn’t being reckless, someone hit him... You’ve been asking me about him every time I walk through the waiting room, asking me if he’s going to die. I wanted to pray with you so badly but never got the chance, even after I clocked out. But listen, wipe away your tears because he is okay. He is going to be okay. The doctors said it was a close call but he’ll pull through and after some surgery, therapy, and some time, he’ll be as good as the day you married him, fourteen years ago.
Dorothy, in your little blue dress, it was all a mistake. A misunderstanding - they were wrong. You won’t be defined by this, it won’t haunt you like a distorted shadow with a mind of its own. Also, this time without a real, loving advocate is temporary. A family is looking for you, and whe they find you, there will be no ‘foster’ to worry about. Group homes and darkness aren’t the road ahead, not even close. You are brave and good and kind and someone will make you believe this, someday soon.
It’s okay Kelley. You’re right - 24 weeks is a little too early to deliver. But you’re not in labor, and ‘fetal demise’ won’t be on your paperwork later today. The good, extremely capable doctors upstairs will find where this labor-like pain is coming from and they’ll make it go away. You and your baby are going to be okay, more than okay, you’re both going to live to have a shot at everything good and wonderful.
God, you are good. You are mighty. You’re the only hope this broken world has, help me to live and love in the light of this truth. Thank you for sending us salvation, hope, and a better answer to this world’s mess and pain. When we are weary and heavy laden, you give rest.
So tonight, I will rest. Eventually. I just wish I knew that they could rest, too.
The oblivious pigeons are very nice touch--they stand in for the indifferent universe, except that your desire to provide happy endings proves the universe is not quite as indifferent as a pigeon and the over-arching ending you provide for all the stories, your prayer, doubles down again on the possibility that the world is not a pigeon.
ReplyDeleteDanielle, this is your forte, this is you firing on all cylinders, this is you writing at the top of your game (and I know you're saying to yourself, 'But it was too easy; I hardly had to think about it all, so how can it be good or worthwhile?')
Well, it is, both good and worthwhile, and I tell you again, first, that more than in any of your fiction, this is your truest voice and, second, that if you care to work in this vein, it will become and be fiction very quickly.