Angels are made of pain

I am a nurse. After everything I've seen, I don't dare to dream big anymore. But I do dream of better Pediatric palliative care... of proper and decent goodbyes and help for parents who are left to live without a piece of themselves.

I love my job although I never know whether today it’s going to overflow me with a whole spectrum of joy and happiness or it’s going to break my heart into a million pieces so tiny that it will be impossible to collect them all again. Over the years a lot of them got lost forever in cold hospital hallways and rooms filled with despair and hopelessness.

It was one of those summer dawns that make you feel alive and in love with life - the sky was wearing its most beautiful shades of pink and blue while the sun was waking up and stretching through cotton clouds, forcing the birds to sing and grass to lift the morning dew into the air, making it fresh and promising a lovely day. Such an end of a long night shift. My coworker David came to say hi and instead of joining me for a cup of coffee on a ward balcony as he usually does, he asked for help.

“So, there is this box with pills that was delivered to us by mistake. Can you please take it downstairs? I have to take care of a new patient that is coming in.”

“Downstairs where?”

He hesitated to reply and I looked away for a split second trying to find an excuse. But even to me, at that moment it became pointless to keep avoiding that part of the hospital.

“Memories attached or not, it’s just a ward like any other” - I comforted myself on my way down. Creaky elevator door opened and revealed the ward from my nightmares. Everything was still the same as I remembered. Old massive windows with metal frames were wide open but I couldn’t catch a proper breath. I started to walk down the hallway towards the big glass door of the Pediatrics Oncology as fast as I could, desperate to ring their bell before the walls swallow me.

Before I knew it, I was on the other side of the door, holding the box with medications like my life depends on it and trying to shoo away my panic attack. I put the box on the reception counter and took a deep breath.

Suddenly, a boy appeared in front of me. He wore a yellow woolen hat and old pajamas that hung a bit from his skinny little body. I couldn’t tell how old he was, maybe five or six. With one tiny hand he gripped the gray stuffed rabbit and with the other he held on to the infusion stand covered with colorful animal stickers. He simply stood there still and stared at me. Everything about his appearance revealed his severe illness. Everything but his eyes… eyes so big and blue that they irresistibly resembled the Atlantic ocean and I felt I could easily get lost in them if I didn’t look away. There was so much fear in them and so much strength at the same time.

“Hi!” - he surprised me in his childish squeaky and unusually cheerful voice - “Have you seen a man in the waiting room? He looks like Thor.”

I raised my eyebrows in astonishment and could not resist smiling at him.

“No, I haven’t seen anyone like Thor lately…”

At least a thousand torches were burning in his huge eyes and one of them was noticeably extinguished the very second he heard my answer.

”So, your bunny is a pirate?” - I made a lame attempt to brighten up our strange encounter.

“She’s not a pirate” - he said softly, looking down. “I lost her eye and had to make this eye patch so she doesn’t feel bad for being different.”

My heart sank. One of those days, no doubt about it…

“Are you new here?” - the boy asked with interest.

“No, I work at another ward.”

“Which one?”

“Neurology.”

“Why are you so sad?”

I stood in front of that child and felt like my mind was freezing and the ground under my feet melting as the ocean in his eyes rolled the waves straight towards me, making me nervous to answer him as soon as possible.

“Elias, go to your room for breakfast!” - elderly nurse called him and for some reason I felt like I was saved by the bell.

He looked a little annoyed by the call but he squeezed his one - eyed rabbit again with a weak hand full of cannula and myriads of other needles wounds and began pushing his IV stand down the hall, slowly disappearing between the walls of cheerful colors and colorful drawings that somehow made this place even more tragic.

The road from the hospital to my apartment consisted of a beautiful alley full of trees and shades and was just as long as it took for all the thoughts and feelings to fall into its place after work. But that day was different. As if all the beauty of the alley had disappeared and as if only the glances of casual passers-by remained, who - like Elias - saw my sorrow. As I hurried more and more to the safety of my home where I could be as happy and as sad as I needed to be, my attention was drawn to the local fabric store and in a blink of an eye I was inside. I got two round, shiny black buttons and once again, the alley has regained some of its beauty.

Next morning, I was back at the hospital even though it was my day off. All night I was haunted by the big eyes of the little boy and for a still unknown reason, I decided to see him again. I introduced myself to a young nurse and asked about him.

“We have known Elias since he was two and half years old. Now he’s almost five. He was in and out because of a brain tumor. It was better for a while but recently it got more aggressive and now it's the matter of days...”

I walked into his room and saw him by the window.

“Hi Elias.”

“You’re the sad lady from yesterday.”

“I brought you something…”

I sat down next to him and took two black buttons out of my pocket. He looked confused.

“It ‘s for your friend, the rabbit. I thought maybe you would like me to fix her eyes so she doesn’t need an eye patch anymore…”

“Is it going to hurt her?”

“No, I’ll be quick.”

“Good. That way she can be happy even when I go away.”

“Where are you going?”

“To heaven.”

I suddenly had the feeling like I didn’t have a single drop of blood in my body and my face seemed numb. I swallowed tears like an unchewed piece of food, gently took the stuffed rabbit and rushed to leave the room.

“Her name is Noni!”

“I’ll remember that!”

I ripped the old eye off of the toy’s head, put it in my purse pocket and stitched two new buttons that gave the bunny new, shiny eyes, then hurried back to his room to return it to him as soon as possible but when I came in he was asleep. He looked so exhausted and tired and yet so peaceful. Tortured little boy… As quietly as I could, I put Noni next to him, adjusted his yellow woolen hat a bit, in which he slept and which was obviously to him the same as that eye patch was to the stuffed bunny. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

The massive glass door closed behind my back and yet there was no relief. Anxiety started to kick in as I was now in the middle of the waiting room… a huge, round room that connected Pediatric Oncology and Pediatric Intensive Care, like some kind of limbo between two circles of hell. It was so quiet. Not a single soul could be seen or heard. Only the sound of monitors ominously beeping and one barely noticeable man sitting in the corner.

It was Thor. ‘His’ Thor. He sat calmly, holding his hands in his lap and stared absently at the floor. He was tall and thin, modestly dressed. I approached him and immediately noticed his skin which was rough, dark and prematurely aged from hard work but his hair was golden and shiny like the sun danced in it. It was only when he looked at me, with the same huge blue eyes that Elias had that it was clear there had once been similarities between him and Thor. I sat next to him and said nothing for a while, not knowing how to start.. And we sat there in silence, like we knew each other for years.

“Few years ago, I was sitting in this chair with the same despair as you are now. I know exactly how it feels. Actually how it hurts. I would like to help you, but I can’t. I can only talk to you and show you that someone does understand… I know it would mean a lot to me back then…”

His eyes approved without him saying a word. He wanted to know more but didn’t know how to ask. Twisting Noni’s old eye between my fingers, I started my story.

"I work here but I avoided this floor for years. I call it hell. It may have light purple walls and butterflies painted all over them but these same walls once trembled at the force of my hopelessness, these same hallways once echoed with my pain and those glass doors of PICU once kept everything I had locked away behind them.

Her name was Aria. She was with me for such a short time, but no matter how gloomy and difficult those days were, they were at the same time the most beautiful I ever had. She was born with a genetic disorder that nobody knew about in pregnancy. First day of her life she got stuck here, at Intensive Care. Doctors weren’t even sure what was wrong. And me - I knew nothing. I waited here, day by day with other moms whose babies had common problems, if I may call them that. They were all, one by one taking their children home. All except me. Aria was getting worse and nothing seemed to help. She had severe epileptic seizures, she was hypotonic, could not eat without a nasogastric tube… so many problems and so much pain on her little chest to carry… Nobody explained possible causes or consequences of her condition to me, nobody said anything. Only that she was dying. How could I accept that? I was like blind man in a thick forest, asking around and begging for help, calling other hospitals, looking for other opinions… but there was no way out. And not enough time. I know that now. We got to spend a month at home… nothing resembled heaven more than those days with her. And nothing resembled hell more than days spent here, in ignorance and anticipation. She died when she was four months old. In my arms. It took me 3 years to realize that I didn’t die with her, even though I wanted to.

There is a difference between you and me. You know what is killing your child, I didn’t know. I even heard the doctor mock me once, saying how annoying my questions were and how unbearable I am for not understanding what was going on. I felt miserable and alone. I was angry and I didn’t know when to stop and enjoy her as I should. I wanted to prove everybody wrong and find a way for her to live, as all parents would do. But that cost me time, songs I could sing to her, hugs I could give her and those kisses on her cheeks I could bother her with, right between her nose and lips. If I had nice doctors like you do, who would treat me like a human being, maybe it would all be different. I don’t know. There is too much that I still don’t know.. Even though I still wake up to the memories of her suffering and funeral and that little white coffin that shouldn’t even exist or ever be made again… at the end of the day, I still remember her with a smile. You see, the day will come, when you will remember your son with a smile.

You’re sitting here now because it’s too hard to go inside and watch him hurt like that. I understand. But he is waiting to see you… Don’t be scared of him. Everything is fleeting except love for the child. Pain will also go away… remember that angels are made of pain… and go make your angel happy while you can."

Elias went to heaven a week after I met him, sleeping next to his dad and his Noni. Thor (his real name is Daniel) learned to remember his son with smile and after the time healed his wounds a bit, we decided to find a way to help other parents who feel alone and hopeless through support groups. As for me, this year I am leaving Neurology and becoming Pediatrics Palliative Care nurse for there will always be another Aria or Elias who need their hat adjusted or a song sung in gentle voice just for them.

And I can swear, if we could see the spirits of the children that wander around these wards, we would probably see spirits of ourselves among them, spirits of who we were before we ever set foot in this damned place... All we need is someone to tell us that we're going to survive, whether we like it or not and teach us how to do it, one day at a time.