My Last On-Call Night at the Hospital

So here I am, in my on-call room, after a summer of transitions and challenges, closeness grown into deeper love, and distances grown into deepening myself, where fears and prayers have often held hands as the door opened and closed time and again, pouring me out to the hearts in need, and receiving me back enriched and softened.

Here, where my special blue, puffy blanked has kept me warm and comfortable in the midst of creeping chills of unforeseen circumstances, and besides which I layered story after story, faces upon faces, some limping amongst the living, some having left into the silence world.

Here, at the hospital, where the routinely perceptible “Attention please, attention please, trauma alert, emergency room…” informs my ears every too often that in the fragility of life, all that matters in the end is that we stick with each other, that we fight alongside each other when pain claims its power; here, where we learn to honor the trust of the most vulnerable whispers, where we find that a gentle touch can help restore vigor to a trembling heart, where hugs go on long and true, sometimes unexpected, but always full and godly, where prayers offer the sweet aroma of life unto eternal life.

Here I am now, on my last summer on-call, as I type my thoughts and feelings. And to be honest, if this were to be my last on-call ever, I would be truly sad.

However hard and full of unexpected, the night calls have become the most profound part of my experience at the hospital. In the stillness and quietness that settles in after dusk, it feels as if the moments become more solemn, the routine turns into ritual, and the heart is more present to listen, to feel with, to cry with, to give itself completely to those who need it.

The night calls are the painful calls. Perhaps this is why I prefer them. Somehow they get the most out of me. Somehow I feel more at home with these people, with their losses, with their sorrow. It triggers my compassion at the utmost.

I have spent hours, after hours, after hours with families removing life-support of a loved one, grieving over the loss of a still born or a fetal demise, gathered around unsuccessful codes, emergency failures, deaths on arrival…

I heart the instant bond with nurses. I finally feel like I found a place where I fit in. I like to help, and here, at the hospital, I feel like I make a difference. I finally found a place where people are there for each other, where people know, whether by profession of by intuition, that we are really meant to live our lives offering and receiving support, giving ourselves to others and learning to receive from them. I like the hearts I met here. I learn from them. I grow with them. I understand life in ways I would have never imagined.

We’re all equal here. We’re all vulnerable here. No more masks, no more pretense, no need to impress. Here, all that matters is the heart, as it stands before God, and as it pours out in all its honesty, in all its sorrow, quests, and hopes.

I am looking forward to more on-calls the year ahead, to more of this sacredness and genuineness. This is life at its best quality, despite the insufficiency and loss; or maybe precisely because of insufficiency and loss. A place where it all begins, and a place where it all ends.

And most truly, a place where God is present.