Surgical Knife/Life Lessons

If you were a medical student or physician in the 1970s, you were competitive in nature. The numbers were against you: 4 applicants per spot just to get in, and then the surgical residencies were brutal pyramids with yearly trimming, with a few who survived to become chief resident. We developed many defining characteristics: efficiency, single-mindedness, and goal-oriented focus. Some, if not all, lost compassion, relaxation, and the capacity to idly sit on a lawn and see shapes in the clouds. Regretably, if you were fortunate enough to use the former traits to develop a big medical practice, you were rewarded, but not with time off or opportunities to be a parent, spouse, or child to your parents.

These were things I learned along the way.

Calloused hands

I have come into your hospital room, old friend
To share the news that we all dreaded was true
As I sit down to quietly speak to family and you 
I am struck by the intimacy that you allow me to see. 
Causally stroking your hair with loving hand 
Calloused by years of weather, Jake listens with us.
As you sink back with the weight of the prognosis
Those hands gently tug at a bit of hair that has 
Become misplaced. They seem to know that you 
Have become the focus of all their world.
These small gestures, without pretense or willful
Thought, speak volumes about the dependence of
The healthy upon the ill, the need of the healthy to
Be needed- especially now when there is nothing
That they can do.

I have come to know that when the ill
Die before the healthy are ready
One can really kill two.

Our territory, our boundaries in your sick
Room are defined by what you allow us to
Touch. I cannot intrude upon your daily care
Until the responsibility for you is passed to
Me by those you love, who trust me to 
Temporarily replace them and handle
Something so precious as your hand or gown.
And when I do, let me remember to use
A feather gentle stroke of the head, 
A clasp of friendship between two seeking hands
A simple dressing up of the gown to reach you.
 I am only here to provide temporary help along
 This road of strife on your journey, hoping to earn
 The trust of those eyes that allow me the freedom of 
Intimate gestures learned from calloused hands.

I have come to know that when the ill
Die before the healthy are ready
One can really kill two.

Remind me not to speak over a clipboard or chart 
Clutched to my bosom as a shield against feeling.
Rounding with the speed of the message given,
but not received -family seen but not.
When together, we know the end of the journey is
Certain, those who will stay behind seek ways to
Say their goodbyes with simple gestures, sad smiles,
Encoded messages that can only be read by one 
who has shared life’s experiences as one, not two.
I feel your love pass in the room as palpable
As a pulse not weakened by time and fate, as now;
But strong as the passion that was once shared .
Thank you for allowing me to be a bit player
In the closing scene of your romance, for you have
given me a lesson in what life should be. 
  

Growing Up at Twelve
 
Brandon is twelve and post op.
Four surgeries for an 
Infected appendix.
Two then and two more now
For obstructed bowels.
We all remark 
How old he seems 
and so mature,
I guess surgery
Will do that for you.
 
Maggie remembers twelve.
Until then her Dad would pick
Her up after school every day.
She would wait 
On the corner to see the big
guy in the big car.
Never late, never fail,
Was their secret deal.
The day her folks split 
he forgot to pick her up.
 
Gloria Martinez has three daughters
I have no answer when Maria,
Who just turned twelve,
Asks me if her mother would get better?
Pancreatic cancer doesn’t leave
Anyone to brush your hair,
Tell you about boys,
And dates,
And life.
It just makes you grow up at twelve.