maybe there are worse things. there are people out there with cancer and chemotherapy and radiation and upstaging and all the more understandable disasters that happen from inattention. you can miss things that you're looking for, i know that. i know that very well. i know a baby who died from a miscalculation. he was low on some salt or other and very premature and there was a problem with a decimal point. you could do that, too. you are careful and the nurse checks and the pharmacy checks and everyone is careful. but you can miss a decimal point. they all did. and the baby died. i know it can happen from a simple, human mistake. i know of a baby who died in the intensive care unit. he was supposed to recieve a medicine before he left the hospital and someone forgot to give it to him. just a checkbox on a form somewhere. but he got the infection the medicine protects him from and he died in the intensive care unit after being turned into the single most frightening thing i have ever seen in my life-- a baby on a ventillator, dying fast. from the evil of those who practice evil and i know that there are people who will swoop in and make everything worse, as if it could be any worse. there is a dead baby; how can anything get worse? they will talk and talk and talk themselves into thinking it could never happen to them. making it someone else's fault is a very good way to make yourself sure this could never happen on your watch. which i recommend, by the way-- anything beats this, the constant ruminating, the gnawing aching finality, the cold, pointless futility of wishing it didn't happen, hating God, hating yourself most of all. of wishing and knowing that wishing means nothing. because it wasn't carelessness, there was no decimal point mistake. it wasn't not thinking about it, not knowing about it, not looking for it. it wasn't arrogance or fatigue. it wasn't a mistake. it was failure. you can fail. you can try and fail. and your bring that to every bedside you are at. forever. and from the miscief of those who practice envy and you will yourself through the day. and you watch your feet walking steadily through the day, and the next, and the next. and you will yourself forward. and you chew on the moments she was in your care. mistakes you can fix, carelessness you can fix, arrogance you can fix. someone else's fault you can fix. this you can't. you failed. you gave everything you had, held nothing back, and you failed. and as you look back you can see the everything that you brought with you. you can see the nothing that you held back, that you protected. it is the only thing that comforts you. you failed. you gave everything you had and failed. but it was everything. everything. and then you put your head on the floor and recite the prayers again and try to do what you're saying. |
