“Love is watching someone die”

[I cannot write about this horrible war Putin is waging on the Ukraine, for now, because it’s too painful for me.]

“What Sarah Said” [Death Cab for Cutie, “Plans” album]

“And it came to me then

That every plan

Is a tiny prayer to father time

As I stared at my shoes

In the ICU

That reeked of piss and 409

And I rationed my breaths

As I said to myself

That I’d already taken too much today

As each descending peak

On the LCD

Took you a little farther away from me

Away from me

Amongst the vending machines

And year old magazines

In a place where we only say goodbye

It sung like a violent wind

That our memories depend

On a faulty camera in our minds

And I knew that you were truth

I would rather lose

Than to have never lain beside at all

And I looked around

At all the eyes on the ground

As the TV entertained itself

‘Cause there’s no comfort in the waiting room

Just nervous paces bracing for bad news

And then the nurse comes round

And everyone lifts their heads

But I’m thinking of what Sarah said

That love is watching someone die

So who’s gonna watch you die

So who’s gonna watch you die

So who’s gonna watch you die”

This is one of my favorite songs by Death Cab for Cutie. For its lyrics. 

The closest I’ve been to serious, possibly life-threatening situations has been during my own COVID illness in March 2020 and my two ED visits, yesterday and three months ago. For now, I’ve always been on the side of the person needing comfort and have been blessed with “happy endings”. Nevertheless, the difference between my ED visit three months ago with a friend sitting next to me and holding my hand nearly the whole time compared to my lonely five hours in the ED yesterday and my weeks of isolation in the spring of 2020 is huge. The comfort that a human presence at one’s side in moments of intense physical pain and fear for one’s life can bring, at least for me, is hard to describe in words. 

I remember how I’ve often thought, during peaks in the pandemic, of those poor souls alone in their (hospital) beds fighting for their lives in total isolation for fear of spreading the infection: I cannot help but think that the isolation was almost as deadly for them as the virus.  [And I know this is just the tip of the iceberg, just one tiny drop in the ocean of human suffering, but every little drop can be unbearably painful.]

I’ve never been the one “at the bedside”. I don’t know how I would hold up to it. But I do believe that being there for someone in their hardest, scariest moment(s) is a profound act of love.