Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel, courtesy of Unsplash
Five years of medical school didn't prepare me for losing my first patient. I can't go back inside that hospital. Maybe I can't go back to work, either. Maybe my days as a doctor are over.
I'm outside in the meditation garden, away from the lunch time chatter. A cry starts down deep in my gut and pushes hard up against my throat, fighting to escape.
I can't. Suck it up. Deal. This won't be the last person you lose.
The sight of her shocked me. I thought I was completely alone, so she seems to appear from nowhere. Who is she? I know or have at least had contact with each of the ten-odd nuns who slide silently through the hallways each day. Maybe she's new.
"Hello, sister. I was just about to leave, so you're welcome to my seat."
"Sit down, Linda."
How on earth does she know my name? I wrack my mind, trying to recall a name, a face. Before I can ask, she gently pushes me back onto the bench and sidles next to me.
"I heard what happened to Mr. Frost."
As hard as I tried to stop it, the gate that held the dam of tears broke open. I hid my face. I just couldn't look at her.
Suddenly, I felt her strong, warm hands on my head. Her fingers slowly and tenderly felt their way along the gentle hills and dips of my skull.
I could’ve stopped her, this stranger who knew my name and gave no thought to invading my personal space.
I could've stopped her, but I just didn't want to. No.
The calm that overtook my trembling shoulders radiated across my arms and legs. My breathing slowed.
Then came the movie. I don't know what else to call it. Through closed lids, I saw Mr. Frost's face, a map of deep crevices and roads that life had etched. I gawked at this movie-the movie of a man who was killed by my ignorance.
He was alone. Sun rays played on the walls and turned the ceiling a golden yellow. I watched as Mr. Frost lifted his head from the hospital pillow. My God, he's waking up.
My shock turned to fear. I killed him.
I'd never seen him awake. His wife called 911 after she found him unconscious in the potting shed, slumped over a tray of daffodils. Cardiac arrest. But here he is, eyes opening slowly as he pulls himself up from the dead. He was dead, because I killed him.
Mr. Frost gazed straight at me. He held that pose for what seemed like forever, his eyes dancing.
That’s when I saw it. That slight hint of a smile, the kind that probably broke hearts in his youth. He smiled at me. At me.
I cried out into the blackness, my hands reaching, reaching out to him.
The nun released her grip and I soon found myself on the ground next to the bench.
I opened my eyes but she was gone.
Two days later, I entered the Mother Superior's office. Located just outside of the intensive care unit, it was dark and smelled of aged wood. She greeted me and motioned to a chair.
I described the nun I'd met in the garden. I needed to learn her name and find her.
Mother Superior shook her head.
"The person you're describing is Sister Mary Lynn, and no, you couldn't have met her."
"What do you mean, Mother? I did! Sister Mary Lynn. I want to thank her. She was so kind."
"That's not possible."
"Why not?"
"Sister Mary Lynn died last year."
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