Where Do I Stand?

Where do I stand,
With my short white coat
And eager heart,
As the alarms sound
And the ventilator pumps
And the nurses float by
In this just too-too-small room
Where my patient is going to die?
Algorithms dance across my mind
Each with a beginning
And an end.
Meanwhile,
I step here and there
As those in-the-know
Dance some chaotic dance.
I feel helpless and alone
Relegated to the corner
To await the inevitable.
If only someone would just tell me
Where I do stand?
I choose instead to kneel,
Humbly at his wife’s feet
As she sits outside the room,
Collapsed and frail,
Eyes burnt red with tears
Pleading with me for something more,
Another option,
Anything besides this.
“I don’t know how to do this,
I don’t know how to do this”
She whimpers.
Neither do I.
So I hold her hand
And rub her back
And say nothing.
Silence falls between us
And I know
That we may never know where,
But eventually,
We all must stand.

- Eric Young 11/30/06