As a nurse, I often found myself on the front lines of the rawness of the human condition. In a certain case, I found myself in a situation where one of our patients unexpectedly had passed away under our care. He coded after developing an emergency bleed that we could not stop, and despite a massive attempt at saving his life, he passed way. Our team was shaken to the core that night by this man’s death, caught off guard by his swift rapture.

Alyson, a veteran nurse, came up behind me. “Do you feel it?” She asked me quietly. “Can you feel the heaviness?” I nodded. I knew she was speaking from experience. She was silent for a moment before she continued. “He was such a nice man. I was just speaking to him, about how he was excited to get home and see his dog again.”

My throat tightened. We cleaned the room together in near silence.