Gloria Heffernan
Intensive Care
When the phone rings at ten o’clock at night,
after she has worked a fourteen-hour shift,
I know it’s not going to be a catching-up chat.
When I ask “How’s it going?”
I brace myself for any number of answers.
When she was a girl
there was always something I could do.
I was good at solving problems
with some sound advice or
a late-night trip to the diner
for sesame bagels and hot chocolate.
Today’s problems don’t lend themselves
to such simple solutions.
When she’s had a hard day at work
it means a patient has died.
It means she has had to break the news
to the next of kin.
It means someone my age,
who reminded her of me,
won’t get out of bed tomorrow.
An intensive care nurse,
when her voice is weighed down and weary,
she wants only one thing from me.
So I listen with reverence,
receive each word like a sacred offering.
And I care…intensively…
when there is nothing else
I can do.