finduruial

A nurse’s tears are sacred She cries them In the med room – in the bathroom – – in the back hallway – at home – Someplace where she will not disturb you with them She cries them After she palliates patients alone when visitors are banned After family have come to visit with anxious, longing faces at the windows After other families yell their frustrations at her in their fear and in their grief After a doctor tells a patient about their poor prognosis After a difficult code After chastisement from a charge nurse for spending “too long” explaining the plan of care to a family After holding a patient’s hand as they cried because they were so lonely After learning that her hospital is running out of PPE (lists of critically low supply highlighted in yellow on daily staff emails) A nurse’s tears are sacred Hardworking women (and men) But mostly women Women and water, their power within A nurse may try not to show you her tears But she is human; she cries too Her tears are cleansing

You are the patient with the short words “Drug O.D.” as your hospital diagnosis I am the nurse who cares for you after an overdose When you arrive, you are scared You are often angry or withdrawn You might have already been "Narcanned” In the back of the ambulance that brought you here Or you might have been brought in by someone who loves you and wanted you to get help It’s yet another traumatic experience to add to whatever hurts have caused you to use drugs to numb the pain. I am the nurse Who cares for you as the substances slowly leave your body Who attaches your heart monitor cables and waits nervously for whatever damage the computer screen might reveal Who takes your blood pressure again and again to make sure your organs are getting enough oxygen. You are the patient Who lies alone in a bare room I am the nurse Who meanwhile spends hours on the phone with Poison Control experts to pinpoint your symptoms and find the right therapy for you I wake the physician in the

I am a nurse One of those who have watched over the dying since Florence Nightingale And long before Who hold the limp hands Who meet the terrified eyes Of those who “do not go gentle into that good night” Does a nurse get used to death as her career goes on Or will I always remember my first death With solemn, visceral clarity An old, old Chinese woman whose hand I held In the last stages of her painful palliative delirium Typing one-handed on my computer so I wouldn’t have to let go of her hand While I caught up on my charting. Later I waited with her family for the funeral home to call back As I washed her up, I saw that her jade bracelet Had gone dark and dull on her wrist in the moments after her death She reminded me of my own grandmother, An old Chinese woman who wears a jade bracelet I didn’t have time to cry until I was walking home. Will I always remember entering a shift To find someone’s family in the midst of choosing To make their loved one DNR after a massive

Perhaps one does not miss open sky and dry Prairie air Until one loses both to the Trees of the Canadian Shield Trees tall, imposing, Present, watching us piddly little humans go by As we try to make meaning of our lives Perhaps one does not miss family Until one loses them to five days' driving across Canada It is hard to leave the people and place that raised you You didn't know how much you would miss them Perhaps you try hard to begin a new life in a new place Appreciating roadside poutine and brilliant red maple leaves Picturesque fallen acorns from tall oaks Tim Hortons ordered in French on the Québec side of the River You have never seen such huge, lovely Rivers as these before But despite my efforts, I am lonely One light brown girl in a White room of seventy I listen to Mandopop to comfort myself I find private places to cry alone I'm trying hard to make a life in this new place After each Cry I pick myself up, dust myself off, And keep moving Perhaps right now is not

[written with Ricardo Menjivar] I play this song at a grave with my friend “Yours Forever, Faithfully” by Young Spirit [watch/listen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEjLgy8tbbE ] Love isn’t always what it’s supposed to be Oh honey, my baby, just stand by me – ya hey ya – I’m yours forever, faithfully – hey o hey o hey – I stand at the grave and my friend asks if we have any prayers we do at graves I tell him no, Protestants don’t have set prayers for the dead, no funereal liturgy Instead, in these moments we just stand there and wonder what to do He said he appreciated how honest that felt He held me as I cried in the wet grass in the sunshine I said I will commemorate this death every year on Canada Day because neither the media nor the State nor the RCMP is honouring his memory as they should. My friend’s house has many images of the Madonna and crucifixes over each bed He pays his respects at the big gilded painting of Jesus hung up in the stairwell (he says when they

I remember hearing a Métis Elder tell the story of the loss of land and the brutal survival her people endured during the Road Allowance years. She said that she believes re-learning the ways of her people is “a matter of life and death” for her. Her culture was not nice-to-know information, it was need-to-know. I remember thinking it was strange that culture would be conceptualized as a thing you need to survive, because when I thought of survival I pictured, Bear Grylls-like, food and water and a tarp shelter and a good knife. What did the finer points of culture and philosophy have to do with that? But after the death of Henri Oldman* I understood better. Henri’s death shook me to the core. First I was numb, then I was in shock for a few days with some odd results including erratic driving, impaired executive functioning and forgetting my wallet and keys places, which during a big cross country move, was not very helpful as my hubby and I had to break back into our own house to