Just Enjoy This Ride

I’ve worked with the public since I was 14 years old. That’s 35 years of meeting people and dealing with different personalities. I’ve been employed at over 10 different places over that time, and I learned long ago that you don’t have to like a person to work with that person. In fact, I have told people when they have complained about a coworker, “Look, you don’t have to like them to get through 12 hours with them. Sure, it makes the shift better, but being friends with a coworker is a bonus, not a requirement.” And, you know, with 7.5 billion people on this earth you are inevitably going to run into a few folks you don’t like. I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with people who have become friends – some very close friends. My “bonuses” if you will.

On Thursday one of my bonuses left this earth. Her name was Kera. She was an ICU nurse. Kera and I were talking about how long we had worked together just the other night. We thought it had been about eight years. During those eight years we’ve laughed together, cried together, yelled together, and worked our asses off together. The very last shift I worked with her was one of those shitty, work your ass off shifts. I remember asking her to take her third patient. I apologized because I knew she was already balls to the wall busy. She just smiled and said it was OK and knew it couldn’t be helped. And she took excellent care of that patient as well as her other two patients. It was what she did.

Death is something that we nurses see almost every day in our jobs. We deal with it. We help family members deal with it. We help each other deal with it. We continue on with our shift because we have to. On a personal level death comes into our lives in different ways: family members, friends, coworkers, and classmates. It hurts, and it sucks. We continue on with our lives because we have to.

I said earlier that when one of your coworkers becomes your friend it’s a bonus. Well, sometimes you get a super bonus and they become more than friends – they become your second family. It seems inevitable doesn’t it? We spend 12 hours at a time with them. We see each other at our worst and at our best. We defend each other. We prop each other up. We hold each other as we cry. Losing a member of your work family is a different kind of hurt. It’s like losing a lifelong friend, a sister/brother, and a partner in crime all at the same time.

I heard a song yesterday on my way to work. It was “Trip Around the Sun” by Jimmy Buffett and Martina McBride. There’s a lyric: I’m just hangin’ on while this old world keeps spinning. And it’s good to know it’s out of my control. If there’s one thing that I’ve heard from all this living is that it wouldn’t change a thing if I let go.” We’ll keep hanging on, Kera. The world will keep spinning. But it sure won’t be the same without you.