My mother was proud of me when I got into University. Years of her scrimping and saving and there I was, going off to school. She was so proud that she did not tell me she was sick until I finally wore those scrubs and told her all about my work in the neurosurgery. That was when she felt she could tell me. That I would be fine without her.
How little she realized I would never be fine without her. Or how it would affect me. There is a disheartening feeling when you realize you're looking at x-rays of the people you love because you're studying under the expert who's treating their condition.
Neurogenic decline is something I wish on no one. Watching my mother lose feeling in her limbs, lose the capacity to hold something as simple as a cup of tea, and then enduring the heart-aching despair of realizing there was no treatment with any success rate that could return her to me. I sat by her bedside in all the spare time I had, afraid I'd lose the precious moments of lucidity she had left.
When she finally passed, just six weeks after I finished residency and started working on my own, I stood over her grave with the three women and one man who knew her as well as I did. Sometimes I wondered if they knew her better. They were the ones who oversaw her last days when I could not be there. They were the ones caring for her in the dark of the night or during my long shifts. They were the nurses who cared for my mother.
And that thought stayed with me. I kept in contact with them, worked with two of them at hospital, and eventually took their guidance to go and certify as a hospice nurse specializing in long-term home care. Something I knew could fill that hole left in my heart. The call I could no longer ignore.
Why? That was the only question my ex-wife could ask when I was pulling more hours trying to manage both until I certified. Why? I asked back when I found her having sex in our bed with someone who wasn't me. At the end of the day the only 'why' I needed answered was her nail-digging clutch into me during the divorce.
I was not the man she wanted anymore. That was what she told me in just a dressing gown as the man hurried to leave our house. I was not working the prestigious job that got us invited to rubber chicken dinners and grand parties she loved for the open bars. I was working longer hours for less pay because it fulfilled me. But she never understood that.
We never did really understand one another. We pretended to but that was because we married when we were young and passionate. When we got old and wise, we got stubborn. At least until the paper said we did not need to get any older together.
It might not be a stretch to suggest it was the best day of both of our lives. Mine certainly. Hers… Well, I guess that is her business now and not mine.
But my work filled that hole as well.
Anything in my life I felt was missing has sealed itself with being the person someone can rely on when there is no one else. I have been in the room with family members as they cried and laughed and bid their final goodbyes to their dying relatives. I have endured fights and arguments and the silence that comes from those who lost the love in their lives a long time ago. And I have been there to hold the hands of the alone.
They are not alone when I'm there.
This job though… It is different. Robert recommended me for it, said I would be uniquely qualified. I have still no idea what that is supposed to mean but it promises to be the most difficult one yet. Those tend to be the most fulfilling.
That is what few people understand. They think the work I do is sad and, by necessity, difficult. The difficulty is lifting older men and women with fragile limbs into beds, addressing bed sores, and helping them in and out of the loo or to the shower. But that is all physical. The real pains are the nights when they are calling out to those not there. Either because they are already gone or because they are not coming.
Three women… that might get difficult. But it is the cruel beauty of it. You get to share the moments of life when people are the greatest parts of themselves. That is when people are really who they are: when they are staring death in the face. Every other time we have the strength for the masks and the facades.
I watch the moments when that slips and their true selves are exposed.
It takes a lot of trust and not many like it. They wish they could hide until the end but most of them just need confession. They need someone to be there for them when they take the burden from their soul and allow themselves to finally be free. I can be that person.
My mother used to joke that I would have made a good priest… at least for the confession part. The other parts were not ever going to happen. I enjoyed too many things too much to give them up for a collar. But she was right, I can do the confession part of it all.
The cruel beauty of letting our souls bare and revealing any of the hidden ugliness inside. There is a beauty to release and I have watched it on enough faces as they pass, realizing they are free now. I hope I have someone I could one day tell all of that to. Maybe someone like me, holding my hand in my final moments.
But, for now, they are alive and well and it is my job to keep all three of them as alive and well as I can until their time comes. Whenever, however, and by whatever means that entails, I am here. It is the greatest calling of my life and I'm ready for this adventure.