Introduction:
When you work in a hospital,
it is vital to keep a certain distance from the patients you care for. Most of
the time, I manage to maintain this detachment, but occasionally I'll see
someone that reminds me of my father, or my mother, and I'll form an
attachment. Because we don't take part in the actual patient care, we don't
know their identities, their diagnosis, or their treatment. But you see their
faces for days and weeks on end, and you care what happens to them. I've seen
people come in critically ill, where sometimes there is little hope. At first,
they are barely aware that you are in the room. Then, they start to improve,
and one day they open their eyes, the next, they say hello, and before you know
it, you're chatting away like old friends. I've also seen the other side of the
coin. I see the same faces come in over a period of time, and I watch them grow
weaker and weaker as their health deteriorates. I see the expression on the
faces of the family, filled with sadness as their loved one slowly slips away.
Life is a cycle that is the
same for every living thing. We are born, we grow, and we die. In a hospital,
you see that cycle every day. In one room, a patient smiles
at you, and you know they'll soon be on their way home. In another, a family
sits with their loved one, and a heavy burden lies on their shoulders. You
know, without ever hearing, that the news they've received isn't good. It's during these times that I feel a certain
melancholy, and my heart goes out to people I will never know.
When I wrote this poem, I
was thinking of the people I've seen over the past four and a half years. But
then I realized it could also be something I would say to my own parents, whom
I lost almost eight years ago. It could be something Paul might have said to
There is a tissue warning
with this poem.
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Don't Say Goodbye
(Sweet Revenge: Hutch's
POV)
I watch you sleeping
Your face bathed in the rays
of the sun
I wonder how life can go on when
all that matters to me
Lies in this room
I don't know how we got here
It seems like only yesterday
We were walking together
Without a care in the world
Now I watch you slipping
away
And I wonder how I am supposed
to go on
Please open your eyes
For the only way I know who
I am
Is when you look at me
Please smile at me
It's the only way
I can keep the darkness from
closing in
Please hold my hand
And give me the strength
To endure what is yet to
come
Don't say goodbye
When there is so much left
unsaid
I love you enough to let you
go
Please love me enough to
stay
Poem by Pat L.
April, 2004