End of the Line?

You can’t make this stuff up.

This morning – after an early trip to the OR for a stab wound – as I was running around trying to get some of the paperwork together, a familiar tune came on over the hospital loudspeaker. It was Brahms’s Lullaby. And, as in this case in most hospitals, that means that a baby had just been born. It’s obviously a very calming song, and it usually has a very calming effect on me. And that effect is often magnified during a morning such as this one, where I had just participated in the care of someone who had suffered a violent injury. To be fighting death and yet be reminded of new life is a wonderful thing. But this morning, I confess, I was jealous.

I was jealous of the mother as she realized a new life had been created inside her. I was jealous of the father as he watched his wife deliver a child. I was jealous of the hopes, fears, dreams, and challenges that a baby brings. I was most jealous – can you believe this? – of the look my wife would give me right before things got really serious. It’s the look that says “can I do this? Is this real?” and the look I give back that says “of course you can do this – this is our child.”

I thought lunch might help my hurt. But after sitting down two unusual things happened. First, my colleague pulled out his phone and started showing pictures of his one-year-old baby boy. And then, right on cue, a whole train of pregnant women and their husbands came into the cafeteria. It seems they were getting a tour of the hospital, so that they and their families would be well-acquainted with the facilities during that emotional time. They were happy, nervous, and anxiously looking around, taking it all in.

That day – the day when I get to walk around the hospital, or look into my wife’s eyes, or hear the music – that day feels further away from me right now than it ever has before. It’s a day, I’m beginning to realize, that may never come at all.

And that is a horrible thing to feel.