In medicine, we give something of ourselves to other human beings, to our patients. We hold space. We bear witness. We listen. We impact them in ways we cannot fathom. But it's a reciprocal relationship. It's a symbiotic set-up. They too enrich our lives with joy and pain and love and meaning.
I wrote a poem about a woman I had the honor to care for at the end of her life. I was there when she was dying, in an ICU room filled with her young children and husband and friends and parents, her nurse and chaplain and social worker. I bore witness to the fear and pain and suffering and love and perfection and beauty. It was almost too much for me to bear.
But we needed each other.
Simply to be.
We needed each other simply to be present.
Rachel
I'm held hostage by those eyes
pinned against the glass
breath caught, lost
somewhere between my heart and intrusive shame
Tiny tentacles of tenacious shame
peel downward my eye curtains
willing me to wilt
to cower from your stare
And all those glassy gazes
vying too to be captive
I your unlikely prisoner
Your silent witness
to the stifling fear
the molten anger
and all that ugly love
all that perfect love
I surrender my shame.
My only offering to you
the love that pools in all the crevices
of my face, my lips, my heart
My eyes hold you steady
keeping time for raw moments
for wails of babes
and sobs of mothers
for I love yous
and last goodbyes
until the time
you set us free
and until the time
you cease to breathe
