rest

my dad died on a day when i was on duty; 

he died in my parents’ room in the quiet early morning 

even as i talked to the mother of a 32-weeker with

the worst gastroschisis i’d ever seen

hollering at the top of their lungs (both the mother and the child)

i told her to calm down. i told her shhh, shhhh, do not worry.

we’re doing what we can.  

later that night i went up to the oncology ward

where a seventeen-year-old gaunt with cachexia 

nursed the mass on his thigh.  big and bad, they describe in books. 

his mother — it is almost always a mother —

did not understand yet that rhabdomysarcoma,

which is already a horrible word, is so much worse than it sounds.  

the seventeen-year-old was five foot seven, the same height as my dad.  

i told them not to worry.  we’re doing what we can.

i continued rounds and left them.  i did not sleep that night.

at 2:00 am a couple of children came in 

for dengue fever and there is nothing more shrill than a toddler

and their fever of a forty degrees centigrade. 

i sat beside their beds and held their tiny bodies in my arms.  

they would not stop crying. 

in the early dawn i looked out the window

and welcomed the end of my shift.

the exhaustion seemed infinite.  i took a picture to show to my dad

because he rarely got out.  it had spread to his bones by then.

i took the vital signs of fifty children.

i did not take breakfast in the break room.

because I got a call 

telling me to go home, and i grumbled that i was very tired, and just

wanted to sleep, and i hadn’t even eaten anything yet.

they told me it’s fine, you can rest when you get here.  

i remember the car ride and thinking about what to get for breakfast.

i opened the door and there was my mother —

— for it is almost always a mother —

and she was very calm and she was not crying

and she did not understand.

your dad is gone, she told me.  

he’s still warm.  this morning he didn’t wake up.

i held his head in my hands and whispered to him.

i took the stairs and i went to him and sat beside the bed.  

i told him shhh.  shhhh.

do not worry.  

i would not stop crying.