29. Calista
TWENTY-NINE
CALISTA
C rying at an empty bus stop was not how I imagined my day at practicum to end. Did I think the intensive care unit was going to be a walk in the park? Absolutely not. But I had no idea that it would knock me down on my ass so quickly.
It was dark, and a heavy autumn breeze had picked up, making itself known as it rattled the glass wall behind me.
I sat in the bus shelter, frozen to a metal bench.
The trickling of tears slowed, leaving thick, wet trails in their wake.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, but the bus I was meant to take back to campus came and went.
The time flashed across my phone screen along with a text message.
It was Divya asking where I was. It was unlike me to miss class for any reason.
Hangover, illness, you name it—especially labs where attendance counted towards participation grades.
For the first time in my academic career, I had skipped a class.
Any other time, I would be horrified. But on this particular night, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
The last thing I wanted at that moment was to be around other people.
I allowed another sniffle to wrack through my body, wiping at my nose with the back of my coat sleeve.
What the hell was I doing?
I was in my senior year of nursing—a semester from graduating. I should have been happy. I should have been excited . But there I was, second-guessing my life choices.
I pressed the back of my head against the glass behind me.
The chill seeped through my disheveled ponytail.
I needed to pull myself together. I knew that, going into nursing, I was going to have harder days than others.
Nothing about this profession was easy. You had to be physically, mentally, and emotionally capable to help others through some of the darkest periods in their lives.
I knew that. And that’s what I wanted to do: help others.
So why was I second-guessing myself now?
It wasn’t the stress that got to me. I worked well under pressure.
Some of my best assignments came from all-nighters when I procrastinated and left things to the last minute.
It wasn’t the people I worked with either.
I enjoyed working with people and got along with almost everyone, even people as difficult as Lincoln.
And I always strived to do my best. I had heart. And that was the problem.
When I was younger, my dad would always say that I felt hard, that my heart was two sizes bigger than anyone else's. It was the same reason why I chose not to eat meat or get into veterinary medicine after my cousin’s dog passed away when I was five.
I took putting myself in other people’s shoes to a whole new level.
Being empathic is usually considered a good thing—a great thing even. The ability to feel and understand what someone else is going through was an important trait in a care-based profession like healthcare. But sometimes I cared too much .
I thought it would be something I grew out of or became accustomed to. That is what everyone said anyway. My professors, my mom, and the nurses that I shadowed all said the same thing: “Oh, you’ll get used to it.”
At this point, I didn’t think I would.
A sinking feeling settled in my stomach.
Even if I wasn’t cut out for nursing, it was too late to change my mind.
I had already dedicated too much time and money to this program.
I couldn’t even imagine the disappointment my mom would feel.
She practically organized a parade down our street the day I got accepted into Fenton’s nursing program.
There was no way I could turn back now. I would have to learn to live with it.
Eventually, I would get over it, just like everyone said I would.
As I searched for the next available bus back to campus, a banner dropped on my phone. It was an incoming call from my mother. I gave myself the grace of one last sniffle before I cleared my throat and pressed accept.
“Hey, Mom, what’s up?”
“Hey, sweetheart,” she said. The sound of pots and pans clanked in the background. “How was placement today?”
“It was okay…” I said, listening to the rainstorm that the wind had brought in. It was fitting for the mood I was in. “One of the patients that I had been caring for passed away today.”
Hans Elsner had been his name. A memory of his face came to mind.
Long, pale lashes that dusted his angular cheeks.
The salt and pepper hair that reminded me a lot of Professor Hamilton’s.
His gaunt arms outstretched down the length of his sides, tubes and wires running across various parts of his upper body.
For what it was worth, Hans appeared at peace for most of the time he was at the hospital under my care .
Hans had lived on his own; his children were out of state and couldn’t visit often. He’d had a fall while out in his garden, and the brain injury he suffered caused enough swelling that they placed him into an induced coma shortly after he arrived.
For weeks, I had spent my breaks by his bedside, reading the newspaper to him. In part, I thought I was doing him some good. I’d read somewhere that talking to someone in a coma was excellent for their brain activity. While he’d held any semblance of consciousness, I wanted to keep him company.
Today, Hans’ children had decided to take him off life support after a meeting with the doctors who had been assigned to his care.
The rest of the floor had expected the outcome.
From what I was told, it was hard for the elderly to recover from injuries like his.
That, at a certain point, it’s just prolonging the inevitable.
The decision was made that morning. Within the hour, preparations had been made to allow Hans to pass.
Neither of his children were able to be there at the hospital, and so I was the one to hold his weathered hand as the alarms were turned off and the breathing tube was removed.
I stayed with him when my coworker administered a dose of morphine to help with the pain.
I stayed with him as his lips turned blue, whispering an apology over and over that things hadn’t been different.
I stayed with him when the doctor came back to declare there was no longer a heartbeat.
My throat constricted as I replayed the memory in my mind.
Part of me wondered if he was aware of what was happening, if he wondered where his children were, or if he was upset that they were unable to come say goodbye to him.
I prayed that he wasn’t, that he had no idea, and that all the time I spent reading to him during my shifts meant nothing.
But if he did have some sort of understanding of what was going on, I hoped he found some comfort knowing I was there for him in his final moments.
These were the types of questions that ripped me to shreds and riddled me with anxiety. I closed my eyes, drawing in a shaky breath through my nose so that I didn’t break down again.
“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry to hear that. That must be so difficult. You’re in a unit where that unfortunately happens a lot,” she paused for a moment. “I heard it gets easier over time, almost like you become desensitized to it.”
And there it was.
“Yeah,” I responded.
My mother’s encouraging voice continued. “Once you’ve graduated, you can be a little more selective about which units you apply to—something less… depressing?”
I was no longer sure that was a thing in this field. Everywhere I went, I was surrounded by death. A reminder of how fragile life truly was. It was hard to stomach at times. Like Lincoln had said, it takes a special kind of person to be a nurse.
“We’ll see,” I said as I wiped a stray tear that escaped my eye. “I’ve been so focused on the master’s program. I haven’t even considered much after that.”
“One step at a time,” she said. I could almost see her nodding, an encouraging grin on her round face. “Everything will come together. Feeling unsure is just another part of growing up.”
We talked for a few more minutes after that. The sound of my mother’s voice soothed my nerves. I had to cancel out the noise, refocus on my goals, and remember why I decided on nursing in the first place.
We exchanged goodbyes as the bus lights came into view.
As it stopped in front of the shelter, I told her I would try my best to make it home for Thanksgiving.
Nothing was better than my mother’s vegetarian gravy and dirty mashed potatoes.
I stood from the chilled bench, my right leg was asleep from sitting cross-legged for so long.
The rain was still thumping against the pavement in thick droplets.
It assaulted me, soaking my hair and anything that wasn’t protected by my coat.
I stepped onto the bus and scanned my student card, searching for a secluded place to sit.
There weren’t very many people on this route at this time in the evening, and I found a window seat somewhere in the middle.
In the comfort of my seat, I mulled over the conversation with my mom.
I stared down at my screensaver. It was a picture of us.
My dad had taken it this past summer during a family road trip to Arizona.
We had rented a less-than-luxurious RV and travelled across the country.
While we were there, we visited five of the seven national parks there, including Grand Canyon National Park, where this photograph was taken.
They had spent most of the year saving for that trip, wanting me to experience more of the world.
Scott and Dana Hale were the sweetest parents a girl could ask for.
I wished Lincoln could have had parents like mine growing up.
It was then, after being a bucket of tears for most of the day, that I realized I hadn’t heard anything from Lincoln since that morning.
He must have had a busy day as well. I opened our conversation and sent him a message asking how he was doing.
The bus ride back to campus wasn’t long, but it was dull.
The last thing I wanted was to be left with my own thoughts and Lincoln had a way of making me forget about everything else.
When I stepped off of the bus and back into the frigid onslaught of rain, I still hadn’t received a message back from him.
I brushed off any grain of concern I had.
Knowing Lincoln, he was probably training or out for dinner with Andrew.
Instead, Divya’s name flashed across the screen, letting me know that she had emailed me the notes she had taken during class.
I liked her message before stuffing my phone in my pocket to protect it from the rain.
The west side of campus was desolate, and I had never felt more alone.
I swallowed the heavy ball of sadness that settled in my chest. Silent sobs began to wrack my chest as I tugged the hood of my coat over my head.
Tears mixed with heavy rain as I started to walk back to the dorms. I would deal with missed lab reports and my unofficial boyfriend later. Tonight, I would allow myself to mourn.