Thread by @gradydoctor

1/
They stood in clusters near the emergency entrance. Their expressions were tell-tale of some abrupt awful.

Yeah.

Two people embraced, burying their faces into one another and rhythmically crying. Another person watched with folded arms, face covered in a sheet of tears.

2/
A few feet away, I saw this youngish man pacing & cursing. He intermittently dragged on a cigarette, muttering, "I can't believe this shit."

A woman who appeared close to my age stared into space as a younger woman bear-hugged her from behind. Her eyes were so vacant.

Whew.

3/
A man came running diagonal across the street from a car. He looked like the woman with vacant eyes.

When she saw him, they crumpled into one another. His muffled, guttural sobs. . . so primal, so raw.

All of this against the backdrop of a perfectly blue sky.

Whew.

4/
I was leaving the hospital when I saw this. Thinking about blue-sky things to do on a day like this day.

But.

The thing is that this is a sight that you see when you work at a place like Grady. Especially on those blue-sky days, it seems.

Especially those.

5/
I always still myself in these moments. Standing in immobile deference for a few beats. And figuring out how not to look ordinary or regular.

Or better yet not seem like I didn't see that someone was having the worst day of their life.

You know?

So I paused.

6/
Eventually, I dropped my head, curled my shoulders, and walked by in somber solidarity. Just as I passed, the pacing man nearly collided with me.

Him: "Oh, my bad, sis. 'Scuse me."

Our eyes met briefly.

Me: "It's okay."

I immediately wanted to take that back.

7/
Because it was clear that it was not okay.

At all.

I parted my lips to say something else. Something like, "I'm sorry for whatever y'all are going through" or "I hope things get better." Which was true but felt too intrusive.

So I gave him a nod and stayed quiet.

Yeah.

8/
I thought about how blue the sky was on some of the hardest days of my life. About how ordinary it all felt.

Before it all was not.

Yeah.

I closed my eyes and uttered a tiny prayer for that family. And that, for whatever that awful is, that they find a way to go forward.

9/
And it felt overwhelming because I'd already spent a full day of caring.

Yeah.

Then I remembered something that one of the Grady elders once once taught me:

"It's okay to hold on to a little piece of somebody's pain. But you can hold some of they joy, too, hear?"

10/
I always remembered that.

So the same way that I let myself be affected by the sorrow of that grieving family standing outside of the emergency department, I paused to feel the other stuff, too.

Like the joyful moments that I also witness most days at Grady.

You know?

11/
Like the 2 tween girls I saw dancing and laughing in unison while recording a TikTok video in the Grady lobby.

Or the elder who sang a gospel song at the top of her lungs in the Grady elevator vestibule.

Or the new parent rolling by in the wheelchair holding their newborn.

12/
I hold a piece of it all. The joy, the pain, the sunshine, and the rain.

Yeah.

And sure. Maybe for some, this is all too much. This regard for all that's happening in the interstitial space of the hospital.

But not to me. In fact, I think it's how I survive.

For real.

13/
I still don't know what happened to make that man curse and pace or that woman to have that vacant stare or that other man to crumple into her in sobs.

And I'll probably never see that TikTok.

But I saw all I needed to feel it all. And care.

Yeah.💛

#humanismalways