My Favorite Hands

Hold up your favorite hand. Look around at the hands around you. Some are delicate. Some are rough and strong. Most are carrying deadly bacteria and must be scrubbed and gloved to handle lines – oh I got distracted. Laurie would be proud. But regardless of the characteristics of our hands, we all seem to enjoy their functions and capabilities. Hands are remarkable creations.

Aron Ralston was no novice heading out to the remote wilderness. He was well trained in survival techniques and even participated in search and rescue for other climbers and adventurers. This was another of his great adventures in a remote part of Utah. He actually came across other climbers on his hike, but eventually was all alone in nature. The idyllic fun suddenly became horror. Deep in a crevice hidden from the world, a boulder moved. This was not planned nor foreseen. the unexpected movement pinned Aron's hand - his favorite hand to the canyon. The pain was intense. With minimal supplies and exposed to the unforgiving elements, Aron carefully calculated his options. For five days he struggles and calculated. Finally, he concluded that the only way to see another day required a great sacrifice. He had to cut off his hand to escape.

Imagine the mechanics. Breaking the two bones on the forearm – strong bones that had been stress-trained all those years. Then a careful dissection of the skin and muscle until you reached the arteries and those three big nerves that screamed each time he touched them. With the mental toughness that few of us can imagine, he did it. Emotion, that can only be imagined, exploded through him and the adrenaline (epinephrine to you guys) rushed allowing him to climb and walk to rescue.

Each day or night in that endless parade - when you walk into the PICU, you enter into the remote wilderness of the heart. Few come here and the majority who do come are not volunteers. They are family and friends of a dying child. They were on their adventure and without warning the boulder moved and they become trapped in the nightmarish poaaibilty of losing their child.

You choose to come. At first of this career there is always excitement – oh, do you remember the day you started down this road? You decided to help really sick children. Then you became aware of the danger. You learned that each day you approach a bedside must reach under a giant emotional boulder to touch one of these dear children. On occasion, far too frequently, the boulder shifts on you and you are stuck - Stuck loving a child and their family in a situation without an escape. The child turns cold and the family - the family experiences the pain of amputation. They have no choice. Disease and injury attacks and takes that precious piece of them – apiece from their heart.

You have a choice. Yet, you choose give a piece of your heart as well. You know that sticking your hand under that boulder has risk. You know that you will become trapped, eventually. You know that pain coming, though you don’t know when or with which child. But you choose to come back day after day to stick your hand – no your heart under that boulder to help children and families needing rescue.

Bravery is not the absence of fear. In fact, there can be no bravery without fear.
Without fear, the event is routine and easy – no bravery required. Real bravery occurs only when fear must be overcome. There is no love without risk. There is no caring without getting stuck. And with each attachment, each touch, you give to these children requires you to do what few can do or even understand. You must severe another piece of your heart and leave it behind.

Thank you for your bravery. Thank you for choosing to risk and choosing to sacrifice. You truly are heroes. My heroes.

Between the Markers

The "holidays" created by Hallmark and a concerned daughter to honor parents have a pungent meaning to me these days. My dear mother died hours before Mother's Day and my father's death was just after Father's Day. So, now for that period between "Their Days" (this is actually the first episode since my mother died) each day resonates with their memories.
I can picture Mother's kitchen as my parents shared the humor in their own interment plans. In a mausoleum, high enough to "see" the interstate passing by, they wished to be laid to rest head to head. My Dad "facing" south toward his alma mater the University of Texas and my Mom "facing" north eyeing her beloved Baylor University. Thus positioned, they would continue to "butt heads" for eternity.
I do miss their laughter and nods of feigned disgust at each other's humor. Perhaps I could find a little comfort in a visit to their site to listen for the sounds of clashing craniums!

The Sweet Rest

Why is the sleep that are stolen from the day's earliest moments, the sweetest? Is it that, like all things outside the boundaries of expected behavior, this sleep has the suspense of adventure. Do we sleep with the challenge of making it on time or having to pay the consequences of being late quickening our pulses and feeding our addiction to adrenaline? Or is it the sensation of having settled the conflicts within our hearts in the earlier hours of REM sleep that allows peaceful rest? Is the bed now more conformed to our needs?
I don't know how those last moments become so dear, but I cherish them. At this hour when serene repose has escaped my existence and I am all alone in the dark, I can only "dream" of the joy of the sleep in the moments just before (and maybe a little after) the alarm.