I was thinking about your mother.

I was on call Friday, and early in the morning I heard your news. We had five admissions in about a five-hour period. From the perspective of the admitting physician, it takes a long time to admit one person…for me close to three or four hours, depending on the presentation. You know, talk to the person, do the physical exam, write admitting orders, correct admitting orders, write the history and physical for the chart. I was backlogged until a week from then, it felt. When I was doing my physicals, I checked every person for a crescent-shaped scar on the torso like you have, because hey, you never know. I finally got everyone tucked in and was getting ready to write my notes. It was about 2 or so in the morning. I went down to get red licorice from the vending machine because chewy stuff helps me stay awake, and on the way I was reading “Of Human Bondage,” which I had on my Palm. I finished the first chapter in the elevator and started to cry. The mother in the story is dying, but that’s not the sad part. The sad part is that she was losing her son. I thought of Colm, how I would gladly die for him. I thought about Sophie’s Choice. I thought about your mother.

Then my palm crashed( probably this was a good thing), a patient crashed( this was not such a good thing) and needed to be transferred to the intermediate care unit, and a young man on some mysterious substance appeared at the door to the conference room where I was working( alone in that entire wing of the hospital, I might add) and asked to come in and use the phone. I looked into his eyes( wide, staring, vacant) and thought about letting him in because you never really know anyone’s story, do you, and if I helped him wasn’t that really like helping you, sort of, in a way? Doesn’t goodness radiate like ripples across a lake?

I had called my husband earlier that night and told him that I was so busy that I hadn’t even had time to think about how you were doing on Friday, but that wasn’t really true. I was thinking about you in everything I did.