I knelt beside him, issuing minute prayers in each thrust I forced onto his chest. My partner had placed a device we call a bag-valve-mask onto the man’s mouth, forcing air into his lungs. It was all I could do not to look at the man’s face. I hated the death stare, and this guy certainly had it.
“Keep going, no pulse,” my partner said matter-of-factly.
“Got it,” I replied, trying not to let on how tired I was getting and not trying to let anyone else in the room know what I knew. This man was not coming back. He had breathed his last and lost all chance of saying his “I love you’s” and “hello’s”. He had said all he would ever be able to say and I could only hope he had said it all.
He lived in a nice house, and the pictures on the wall suggested he had been blessed with a nice family. His wife, who moments before had been preparing a meal with her husband, now had the look of a broken heart that would never be fully healed. Everything had changed in an instant.
One thing that always seems to change in a moment of tragedy, and the same thing that is always taken for granted, is finally given its due as the finality of the end becomes known. See, that’s the problem with time. You never really understand its value until you have no more of it to spend. You take it all for granted until not a grain of sand remains in your hourglass. It is then far too late and, like this man, no one will ever know a thought, feeling, or desire that is uniquely yours to share.
Still, I prayed, and my prayers working to keep his blood flowing now included drops of sweat dripping onto his crudely opened shirt. I wanted to keep going, but one look at my partner’s face said it all. It was time to stop, it was time to let go and let the grieving process begin. Grief can be described as what happens when all hope is lost and the reality of loss takes its ugly hold.
Sometimes you just have to know when it is time to let go. The problem always seems to be knowing just when that time has come. For us, we knew it was time and we let go of what we hoped would be the outcome. Things don’t often go how we wished they would.
I stopped CPR, and we called the time of death. I never liked the time of death. It always seemed to be a lie, the reality being this man had died a while before we said he had. Time is not always accurate, but it always unforgiving. It cares little for what we have left to do, or what we have yet to say, or even how much of it we believe we should have. Time lives by its own rules, and in our arrogance, we often forget that we have no control over time. We only can control what we do with it.
His wife screamed, and I knew she would need help. My partner dropped the bag and went to her while I cleaned up and got ready for others to take over. My job was done and I had failed. The man’s life was over, and I only could hope he fared better in his life than I had in trying to save it.
That story has replayed itself many times in the years I spent in service. Each time a bit of my heart broke and I’d let the pieces flow out through the secret tears I’d cry. Each time I discovered my own mortality, and each time I swore an oath not to waste time. Each time, I failed.
That’s another problem with time. It makes liars out of all of us. For all the vows I’d utter about time there’d be vows I’ve broken. Here’s I am, decades later, having not done much of what I’ve wanted and not having seen much of what I’d like to see. One day, when the sirens come for me, I hope I’d given time as much attention and it has given me opportunities. I doubt I will have.
We shall see. I do wonder what time has in store for me, but I guess only time will tell.