Fast

I parked in the hospital's garage.

Walking through, I remembered too many mornings getting off shift at 7 A.M. and rushing to my car so I could sleep in the garage for an hour or so before starting my day job across town at 9 A.M. I worked in the psychiatric emergency department there. People often waited too long to be seen, and even longer to be placed, should they need or want psychiatric hospitalization. There was often distress, anger, hostility. Leaving there in the morning, I often felt like I'd been in a fight. With who or what I'm not exactly sure. Whatever you call that thing that's trying to crush us. 

Tonight I was in the hospital to support some nurses who lost a child, unexpectedly and horrifically, while working a shift. They'd all witnessed the violent  end of a young life while working frantically to save it. A person who, earlier in the day, looked better than he had in a year, walking the hallways with his parents and smiling broadly at the nurses who knew him well. 

It was so fast, one of the seasoned nurses said. 

She's overwhelmed in this moment - exhausted, crying. 

I'm sorry. I'm just tired. 

She saw death rise from the depths, snatch the boy in its jaws and disappear. Everything she'd learned to do in more than twenty years of nursing was of no use. 

I tried to transmit to them what I observed in their presence: that the most important thing to remember is that all of these people came together and did everything they possibly could to try to help.