Pedestrian vs Animal
By: Martha Jordan
Tags: Sadness And Loss, Healthcare Worker, Personal Growth, Grief, Slice Of Life

Photo by Benjamin Raffetseder on Unsplash

In tenth grade, I was a total nerd. I mean, I still am, but then…those were the dark times. Fingerless gloves, ragged star wars shirts from hot topic, anime references in casual conversation. That bubbly, awkward girl still lives within me, just a little quieter now. So in tenth grade, I was in marching band, as nerds are wont to do. Our friends down the street were also in band, so occasionally I would catch a lift home with them. While riding home from afternoon practice, I was in the front passenger seat when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a deer looming through the windshield for what felt like eternity and was really two seconds.

The car lurched to the shoulder as the driver yanked the wheel and tried to evade the deer that was already sliding across the hood. We came to a stop after a while, the three of us panting heavily. I don’t remember a lot about what happened directly after the hit, but I do recall the girl in the car chiding me for screaming. Even though this happened well over a decade ago, I still nervously scour the dark side of the road for a glimpse of a creature ready to risk it all in front of my car. I see them almost nightly, and although I know to expect them, I still catch myself driving faster than I should in their territory. My heart still races when I see those glittering black eyes in the headlights.

I think that grief is the deer that waits along the roadside, ready to collide at any moment. Often we know about the very real threat of overwhelming sadness, but it’s only a phantom until it slams into us at full force. The first time I felt all encompassing grief was when a family friend passed very unexpectedly. It swallowed me, suffocating me with a heaviness in my chest that ached for weeks. The next unexpected death sucker-punched me right after attending a shower for a baby that never came. And then I started my career of working with the nearly dead and dying. Seeing people reduced to breathing shells was crushing, and even though I watched for the grief in the shadows of my mind, it still sprung upon me in the early hours of the morning. In the beginning I would get off work, drive to a friend’s house, and drink and smoke til I felt sick. Sometimes I’d find an abandoned bathroom behind the imaging department and sob. As I got older, more seasoned, I got a therapist and tried to resolve my knots of desolation more responsibly.

Many employment quizzes will ask, How do you handle stressful situations? Are you able to leave home at home? To leave work at work? And of course you say yes, because you have bills to pay, and the model employee simply doesn’t exist. But when you get home on Christmas day after watching people suffer, alone, from a pandemic that could have been at least somewhat controlled, how are you supposed to leave that at work? Older patients stalling for time so that they have another human face to look at for a few moments. Pictures and cards scattered around the room of a patient who’s been in a coma for weeks. Knowing that every single person who has passed from this virus had a favorite color, a best friend, a birthday cake they preferred. I carry the weight of knowing that even the elderly are still people, and denying them human touch is the primary financial directive of corporatized hospitals.

This Christmas, a patient passed who everyone in the department was familiar with. We had all known his prognosis wasn’t good, but it’s hard not to want to be hopeful. I didn’t know much about this patient outside of his health issues, but I knew that his family loved him. Pictures cluttered the wall, and a letter to the staff from his family was taped to the inside of the room. It was a sincere thank you for our care and service to their loved one. I think about that letter. I think about that man. I think about having to maneuver carefully through his room around all sorts of machines and technology that was fighting to keep him alive. And, due to having the same script for every patient no matter the status of their consciousness, I think about how I told him “Merry Christmas, Mr. Doe”, when I took his x-ray on Christmas eve.

It seems that guilt follows grief like a shadow. Shouldn’t I have said, “You can do this! Your wife is waiting on you, friend! Just keep fighting!” Would that have kept him a little longer? Why didn’t I take more photos of my fiancé’s grandmother before she passed? Why did I allow myself to think that those I love are invincible? Why didn’t I call my mom to talk about her friend, when I could have recognized her red flag symptoms? Why didn’t I drive more carefully, look more diligently for the deer? Regardless of how many woulda, coulda, shouldas I have, there’s not a lot we can do that will actually change the outcome of the real world. Despite this, the guilt hangs on, prodding me for not having complete omniscience regarding those around me and their lives. The guilt is useless for helping you move on, it slows you down and saps your strength and makes you listen to sad songs that prolong your ache.

In all reality, there is nothing we can do to stop death, and so there is nothing we can do to avoid grieving. The deer has blindsided me, the car is stopped, and now it’s time to assess the damage. That dent in your car isn’t going to fix itself, and neither is the raw, painful wound in your heart. Crying helps, as does some good sleep. A counselor can help you validate your own feelings, and advise on how to soothe your pain with methods that are healing, rather than destructive. Destructive Martha would have greased the anguish with beer and cigarettes, not solving the issue but having it sit a little more comfortably in her chest by numbing the edges. Healing Martha has a good cry, hugs her man a little tighter, and takes her time to unravel the knots in her heart.

When I was small, I was so tender-headed, my mother cut all of my hair off rather than fight me with a brush. If anyone but my older sister touched my head, I would sob until I threw up, punishing everyone involved with the hair detangling process. My dad was the one who quietly sat me down in front of the tv and loosened the tangles while I sniffled. He didn’t use a comb, but his own fingers, thick and calloused from a lifetime of heavy work. It wasn’t a speedy process, but it was much more delicate which protected the hair a lot more than ripping a brush through it. My current anxieties are a lot more difficult to unwrap and smooth, but young Martha still exists within my heart, and now I am learning to treat myself gently, with compassion.

The deer are still out there, and I still watch for them. I know that they lurk in the dark spaces of the woods and of my mind; the hospital bed, the news headline, the late night text message that should have been a call. But I also know that I’m not alone, and that to grieve is to love. Reaching out to those also wounded by loss can help fill your own void a little. Take the silly selfies, call just to catch up, tell them you love them as many times as you want, as many times as you need. Consider it insurance.