The World Stopped Turning

The world stopped turning Friday. 

Not literally, of course. Ask any astrophysicist and they’ll tell you that the Earth is so perfectly-yet-delicately balanced in it’s position in the planetary lineup that if it were just a few feet closer or further away from the sun, if it’s axis were tilted ever-so-slightly more or less, all hell would break loose. If our planet suddenly started accelerating or slowing around it’s axis, we would either be crushed by gravity or be flung toward Mars like Elon’s shiny, red Tesla. If the Earth’s rotation around the sun changed in any way, we would freeze or melt. 

Since none of those things happened – we’re all still standing, no one has left the atmosphere, and fall is finally starting to arrive in South Texas – the Earth must still be spinning.

But for one family, a widow, a daughter, two sons, a step-daughter, a step-son, and a mother and father, their world came to a full, complete stop. A dead stop, you might say. It was the day her husband, their dad, their son, after seventeen agonizingly slow minutes of violent cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, which itself was the culmination of seventeen days in the ICU, thirteen days intubated, and gallons – excuse me, liters – of IV saline, antibiotics, anti-fungals, anti-clotting, anti-seizure, anti-damned-Covid treatment where they threw the “whole book” at an unrelenting unseen enemy, the day the doctors finally admitted defeat. “He’s gone. I’m sorry. We’ve exhausted all our capabilities…” Other words were spoken, simultaneously trite and sincere, loaded and empty. COVID, 1; Family, 0.

For days, it felt like an out-of-control merry go round. Words like infection, pneumonia, ER, admitting, ICU, intubate, blood clot, Family Medical Leave, deductible, and the beeping machines seemed to accelerate it. Would someone stop this ride, she asked, I want to get off. Doctors came and went, nurses scurried about, oxygen was increased and reduced and increased again, tests were administered, blood was cultured, temperatures were checked, blood pressure noted, breaths counted, and prayers were offered. The merry-go-round kept spinning, some days faster, some days slower. Visitors, armed with N95 masks, plastic gowns and rubber gloves, dared to enter a Covid-rich environment. Others called, Skyped, and texted. Still others, old-school, sent cards. There were words of hope from the doctors, then words of caution, and then words of a hard, harsh reality: we’ve done all we can; either he gets better, or…. Or, what, doc?...  Or, his heart gives out. 

He didn’t get better. 

His heart, beaten, broken, and battered by a virus, couldn’t do it anymore. It stopped. And nothing could make it start up again. 

Do you know how silent silence is in that moment? For a moment, your ears simply do not register the  beeps, hisses, whirrs, or hums in the room. Then, you realize that after 400 constant hours, they have all been turned off. In that moment, you don’t hear anything except your own pulse which is suddenly and thunderously loud. The doctor suddenly sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher and nothing makes sense anymore. With a final squeeze if the arm, he sighs and leaves. And there is silence. 

And, in that moment, the merry-go-round crashes and the world stops turning.

The family looks at each other, tears splashing on the contaminated floor, masks abandoned in their grief – damn the virus, full mourning ahead. They hold hands, hold each other, burying faces in the chest of the person next to them. Now what, they ask, but no one answers. No one knows. So, they stand, cry, and pray to the Lord who answered their prayers in a most terrifying way. 

The world, their world, stands still.

But in the hallway, the world keeps turning. Nurses scurry by with meds for another patient. A doctor – the same doc who just declared life ended – still fights, not yet ready to surrender another patient’s life to its indeterminate conclusion. Down the hall, there is laughter, a ringing phone, the thump of a heavy door closing. Outside, a firetruck roars into the bay ahead of an ambulance carrying another person whom COVID has invaded. The pizza place next door is hopping, the taco joint has cars in the drive through, and a car honks impatiently at the slow-moving car at the changing light.

 

The widow looks, understanding but not quite believing the scene. It’s as if he didn’t even matter. No one even notices he’s gone. The gourney arrives; excuse me, the tech said, I’m here for him. Not your husband, your son, your dad, your friend – just “him.” It’s time to go. The family huddles and hugs one final time. There are a few final glances; someone squeezes his hand. The wife leans in, a final one-sided kiss on his face. She stands up and walks to the door. With her back to the tech, she says, “take good care of him,” and walks out without turning around. 

Then she steps out into the hall where the world again turns, ever so slowly as people scurry by unknowing and uncaring. After all, their world never stopped turning.