BeeMcGeeWhiz
Monday, February 1, 2021
My First Solo Trip after Jim's Death I Visit our Daughter
Thursday, November 26, 2020
Her Name is Nicole
Her name is Nicole.
Her name is Nicole, and she’s a critical care nurse at UNMC. This is what I know: on November 16, 2020 she worked the 7 a.m. - 7 p.m. shift on the 5th floor Medical ICU of the Nebraska Medicine Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. I don’t know her last name. I don’t know what her hair looks like beneath her PPE cap. I never saw the bottom half of her face under her N95 mask and plastic shield. I know she graduated from Bellevue East High School and she is young. So young. She took care of my husband in room 5340 in his last hours of consciousness.
Jim’s children and I were able to spend time with him the afternoon of the 16th, and I was able to stay with Jimmy in the end in the ICU. Nicole arranged for all the superfluous machines to be removed from the room and directed me to where I could grab something to eat before resuming my vigil. When I returned, she had arranged for a recliner and warm blankets for me so I could be comfortable by Jim’s side. We hoped he would hold steady through the night and we could move him home for hospice care, his ardent wish. Suddenly, exhausted, alone, covered in PPE myself, my mind raced uncontrollably over everything that had happened in the last 24 hours, the decisions he, I, the family had made. Soon I was literally wringing my hands, pacing, on the verge of fainting and then finally wailing, prostrate across his hospital bed. Words fail here, but anyone who has experienced this understands this complete, abject despair.
Nicole came in and I emotion vomited all my fears, failings and anxiety at her.
She held my gaze and spoke to me with brutal honesty and compassion. She relayed what she was seeing routinely in the unit, about the patients who didn’t survive intubations, who languished for days or weeks on ventilators, alone, until their deaths. She spoke of Jim’s poor prognosis on arrival and the young people for whom she had also cared, to no avail. And then she characterized what she saw in our room with me, Jim and his kids that afternoon as nothing short of “beautiful,” that she witnessed it, that she felt “uplifted” by it, the laughter and love. “This is the way it should be,” full of love and surrounded by light, she said. She relayed her own loss sitting with her grandmother earlier this year as she passed from Covid. I expressed my increasing concern for her and all the frontline healthcare workers and my worry about the long term effects that surely these months, this year will have on all of them. She demurred and turned her attention back to me and my situation. Somehow, some how, she was able to reframe what I was experiencing with honesty, authority, compassion, and clarity.
As she spoke, her eyes never wavering from me, I felt calm. My breathing slowed, my crying ceased, and I could center, take it all in, and finally turn back with strength to Jim and our final hours together ahead.
Eventually, Nicole excused herself because, well, she was busy. These professionals are stretched physically, emotionally, mentally beyond anything normal, and every day the numbers grow. She expertly stripped her PPE in the room for the innumerable time that day, to move swiftly down the hall out of my sight to don it all again before entering another patient’s room and do all over again what she does shift after shift.
Later, when her shift was over, I saw her leaving; she caught my eye through the window and gave me a little wave. I hope she could see my eyes smiling as I waved back. I’m certain she left having no idea of the pure gift she gave that night. She doesn’t know how many times I have already revisited the moments together when I have felt the panic rising.
My family’s loss is immeasurable, so when I compound that grief for the more than a quarter-million souls lost in our country as of Thanksgiving Day 2020, I can hardly bear it. We struggle every day, but we are so grateful for the life of James John McGrath and all that it entailed.
Today I am thankful for all the incredible doctors, techs, RTs, and nurses at UNMC that cared for Jimmy, especially his nurse on November 16. Her name is Nicole.
Thursday, March 26, 2020
If I'd known
If I had known I would never get to teach Romeo and Juliet again, never again guide students through this literary rite of passage rather than preparing them packets, I never would have retired this year.
If I'd know I wouldn't get those last two chances to teach composition and get it "right" before retiring, I never would have put my paperwork in.
If I'd thought for a minute that I couldn't sit just one more time with RPS faculty and staff at graduation and watch those kids walk across the stage, I certainly would have planned for another year.
If I had known that when I said, "Have a great weekend" on March 12 that what I really meant was "I hope you have a wonderful life," I wouldn't have taken the last term for granted. I would not have spent these last months looking ahead toward a finish line. I would have savored all the moments. All of them: the funny, the annoying, the joyful, the infuriating. Every single one. I would have said to my students, my colleagues--young and old--my bosses, my friends, my department, "Thank you for making this last year great. Thank you for everything always."
Sunday, August 11, 2019
A letter to my daughter on the eve of her first day as a professional educator:
In the early 1970s when I was a little girl, your uncle Bruce and I would start the school year already anxiously awaiting the Sears Christmas catalog. We would pore over that sucker looking for all the crap we wanted to ask for for Christmas. We’d sit side by side on Grandma’s scratchy couch and take turns circling items we hoped would magically appear under our Christmas tree on the 25th of December. As he was a boy and I a girl, there was never any confusion as to which circled toys were for me, which for him.
My mother left her career and stayed home with us when we were growing up. She baked, she cooked meals and kept the house, schlepped us to dance class and little league practices but also fed her intellectual life with books, politics, great friends and lively conversation. And when we were mostly grown up, she went back to teaching. She chose to do that and students at Wayne High for 20 years were the better for it.
When I reached my career goal of check out person at TWO different grocery stores by the time I was out of high school, I had to rethink my career path 😏and it turned out I didn’t want to be a nurse, doctor or “stewardest.” What I wanted was to be a teacher--like my mother was, like her mother was, like you are now.
I’m so proud of the strong woman you are and the career choice you have made. You can powerfully impact the world with your strength, grace, and compassion. There’s not much more important than what we do every day. It’s going to be hard. There’s no phoning it in, and there will be tough times and failures and self-doubt, but there will also be small and tremendous successes and joy and wonderment and fun. You are going to be an excellent teacher, and a 4th generation Jacques-Hodges-Schafer-McGrath one at that.
Welcome to the fold Ms. McGrath and God bless you, my Dream Come True; now go show them what you’ve got!
Mom
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Powerful Failure
Thursday, April 11, 2019
Bragging Rights
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Empathy Project
But, what this video reminded me of is the fact that I'm maybe not always as empathetic with my colleagues. Ok, not maybe; I know I'm not.
I get annoyed when people don't do their job or drop the ball on something--especially with a student, but I don't know everything they are going through. Who am I to judge so quickly?
I often think about how sometimes kids are experiencing something so huge outside of school that I can't imagine how they able to focus at school, and I marvel at their ability to do so, but those overwhelming times don't stop when you grow up.
Adults experience them, too. God knows I have, and I've been on the receiving end of tremendous grace and empathy from both students and staff. I need to be more outer-aware in that sense with not only the young people in my life, but the adults, too, especially those colleagues I work with every day who really are my work family. While most people don't want sympathy, most everyone appreciates true empathy.