Time builds our Tapestry

5 days…

5 days. 14 years as a PICU nurse. Thursday to Tuesday. I work in the ED now, I spent 14 years as a PICU nurse.

We don’t understand, but we remember.

 

This past weekend was our 6^th Annual Softball Tournament and it was sunny and full and hot and competitive. I love all of the returning teams, meeting them and hearing why they always come back. Getting to talk to little ones who came to watch their moms and dads play- and tell them what the game really meant, why these people were all playing. I never go into the details about Madeline, just that she was an angel and now we have a job to create ‘Best Day Evers’ for kiddos who are sick. It is the best kind of day for me. I always take note of the energy it brings into my soul, definitely not my body, that part is so tired after. I tend to keep myself pretty safe at those events, I never enter the hard parts there… just relish in the light parts.

Every year of our tournament there is a Team Albany Medical Center, they are always on one of the farthest fields. I love that they come. I am reassured every time the Nurses, Doctors, Social Workers, Child Life Specialists and Clergy come to events or take time to meet- reassured that we are doing our job, carrying on Madeline’s purpose.

Madeline’s Purpose: It is more than just a way to get through the grief and loss. It is more than a way to take care of other families with this story- it is way more. It is Madeline’s work… this is the job she left for us. I believe this. I see this. I feel this. I KNOW THIS… it is a fact.

One of the nurses from Team Albany Med came up to talk in the pavilion, and I entered that conversation with the emotional distance I maintain for these events. She said “5 Days… 14 years as a PICU nurse… Thursday to Tuesday”. I was pretty blown away. She told me she finished her Nurse Practitioner and is now in the Emergency Department. I thanked her for coming, for caring and for carrying Madeline. She said “5 days, 14 years in the PICU- we do not understand, but we remember”. I struggled to stay composed. She hugged me and headed back to the field to enjoy the rest of the sunny Best Day Ever- that is what we do. We speak it, we feel it, we cry, we hug and then we keep living a good life… we carry them along.

I don’t foresee myself forgetting that feeling and that moment ever. I sat there… asking myself if I knew that it was a Thursday to Tuesday… those days are less like days and more like a compilation of moments. I can tell you the order of moments, the emotion… I can remember them so clearly when I let my brain reenter that time. I don’t do it often… but I don’t know if I have ever just thought of the days. Thursday to Tuesday…. In all of her years of shifts how many kids came into her care, how many entered her world on a Thursday…

It is a reminder that God was in charge in those moments. I will never even know the scope of the work Madeline’s life does… how many life tapestries she is woven into? I am sure I can not understand the grandiose plans He had for her short life and long legacy. Madeline’s work is still getting done…

I am grateful and humbled that those Madeline influenced are brave enough to tell me, I can’t imagine not knowing. I remember her PICU nurse reminded me of my cousin Sarah, then a PICU nurse in Syracuse, she sounded just like Sarah. It was so comforting. I later learned that Madeline was one of her first patients and changed her forever plan- her nursing career. I always look back and see the stars aligned, the world working hard to do their jobs… not knowing the time left, not knowing what their actions would create in the future. Some might say it is just a coincidence, however I know that there are no such things in this life. All threads in a divine and beautiful tapestry that are being woven as we move through life… as we fail, succeed, laugh, cry, share, hide, build, break and live. At any given moment that tapestry might be so ugly, filled with dark colors and no clear pattern- but in time that dark spot is surrounded by stunning golds and bright blues, and the beauty of it all can be seen… the more time goes by the more complex and layered the tapestry becomes… with rich reds and dark greys- some yellow sunshine woven in there. There is fear and love and acceptance, anger and forgiveness, weakness and power and judgement and failures and pride and joy… and so much more in our life tapestry. I love that part… I wonder what mine will look like at the end of my time here or maybe it is still being woven when I am no longer hanging out on Earth. All will be revealed…

We don’t understand, but we remember. 5 Days. Thursday to Tuesday…

Understanding is not the lesson- but remembering is….