Poem
Visitors don’t come here anymore.
The cafeteria is nearly closed.
The gift shop ladies with their t-shirts and chocolates have locked their doors and gone away.
The boy with the backpack who plays the piano is nowhere to be found.
The volunteers with their newspaper carts have abandoned their posts.
No more flower deliveries fill the lobby.
I hardly remember they ever came.
The world is a quiet place now and we have become quiet with it.
The hallways, still.
The waiting rooms, silent.
The vacant spaces of familiar halls, now nooks to run to, to rest in, to hide from, to take a moment’s breath. To tell ourselves it will be OK.
These unprecedented days have turned into unpredictable ways and we have learned to adjust with them.
We do not know what happens next.
We only know it’s here.
Eyes met through masked faces ask the same questions,
“What will happen next? Are we ready? Will I be OK?”
There are no answers here. No words that fit.
In isolated rooms, alone in their beds, they ask the same questions,
“What will happen next? Am I ready? Will I be OK?”
There are no answers here. No words that fit.
These are days of wins. Intubated for 19 days. The tube is out. He shook my hand.
These are days of losses. Her husband died in the bed next door. She cannot breathe. It won’t be long.
These are the days of fear. “Probable” to “confirmed,” “probable” to “confirmed,” one room after the next. How long before it’s everyone?
And we, like our patients, caught in mid-sentence, stopped in mid-breath, suffocated and tied off from all the answers we wish we had, struggle to find our breath.
We are not a frontline. We are a last defense.
A last defense of limited weapons asking for Time to help.
These are days of hope,
Days we know the only way to come together is to stay apart.
Days we know the only way to save each other is to share everything we know.
Days we know the only way out is through.
And so, it is with this hope, we return day after day, again and again to empty halls, and quiet spaces, learning our way into ourselves and each other, until we breathe again.