Curator’s Note: In this poetic prose, the author reflects on two decades of experience in emergency medicine, confronting death in various settings. Despite witnessing numerous fatalities, the writer questions their emotional resilience and recalls a profound moment during their training, where they encountered a deceased young man, isolated and mourned by no one. This experience instilled the belief that every life deserves acknowledgment and grief. The author grapples with the disparity between their professional detachment and personal loss, emphasizing the deep emotional impact of their father’s death, which starkly contrasts with their clinical experiences as a medic. This dichotomy challenges their understanding of mortality.
Sometimes I wonder why I’m not more fucked up.
Eighteen years in emergency medicine.
Hundreds of places where someone had just died.
Kitchens.
Living rooms.
Parking lots.
Stairwells.
Bedrooms that still smelled
like the person who slept there
for forty years.
The truth is —
the dying are already gone
before that moment arrives.
I was a student the first time I understood this.
A rundown apartment.
A young man.
Already gone for several days
before anyone noticed.
No family.
No one to call.
I stood in that place
and felt it immediately.
Every life should be mourned by someone.
His wasn’t.
I thought all those years of witnessing
would prepare me.
That I had felt enough of it
that when mine came
it might be somehow smaller.
Then my dad died.
As a medic death is something that happens.
As a daughter
it cuts right through you.
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