I saw him slink out of the room and make his way down the hall. His face turned to the wall in an effort to hold back his emotions. He walked in that way that we all do when we don’t want anyone to see us, that telling way of hiding our tears that seems to broadcast that there is a problem.
My mind flashed on who he must be.
The nurse had told me that he had called and was not going to make it in until tomorrow. He was catching a plane from New York to Miami tonight. Too late. I was the hospital doctor taking care of his father, and his father had been in the last stages of dying. This must be the son, I thought. He must have come directly from the airport to arrive so late in the evening.
Then, my mind suddenly flashed on the image of what he had seen.
His father was a frail and thin elderly man in his late eighties who had slipped into a coma at the end-stages of a chronic illness and was no longer communicative. The television was on in the room just to give comfort, probably more to comfort the hospital staff who did not want the old man to feel alone when they could not be there. But we really didn’t know what he was feeling. His body was shutting down. His family had been called. The only living relative, his son was on his way. However, the old man died alone fading away into the room with the television blaring. I had been called to pronounce his death. I put my stethoscope to his chest – no heartbeat. No response to touch. Eyes not reactive. I signed the death papers with the time of death. His son had not made it in time. The nurses prepared the body to go downstairs to the morgue. After I left, they placed him in a white body bag.
A white thick plastic body bag with a zipper on the front – that was the last image of his father that he saw. I called to him. He looked back. I saw his face, and I saw his father in his eyes. I also saw the emotion welling up before he looked away. He was already down the hall. I asked if he wanted me to have the nurses come so he could have some time with his father. He paused for an instant, the shadow of grief passed across his face as he contemplated the decision. I could see the brief “yes,” change to a “no” as he just wanted to get out of here, fade into the walls, and so he faded off down the hall.
I never saw him again, but I still think about that moment.
As a resident doctor in training, I was still learning about the emotional lives of my patients. Truthfully, I was still learning about my own emotional life. Today, I would call him back knowing that he had traveled so far to see his father. I would take him to the nursing station and have someone wait with him. I would ask the nurses to take the body out of the bag so he could be with his father one last time. Hospitals are a place where the elderly often come to die, and I had already seen the compassion of the nurses at these times. I knew that the nurses here would gladly help.
Instead, in the flash of a moment, all I could do was helplessly watch as the young man disappeared down the hall, just as his father’s spirit had disappeared into the night.