Hello Stranger

My freckles, and scars, and my imbalances. My wonky toes and my duck feet, and the way my thighs are too big against my skinny calves, and how my birthmarks make my tits look weird.

But even then, with my scars and weaknesses piling up high, I couldn’t hold back that tiny pinprick of light in the darkness.

Because I’d seen it. His tiny pinprick of light in the darkness as he looked at me. That tiny little glimmer in his eyes as they held true on mine. And I knew it. I felt it...

Please, universe, please let it be true.

Our story was only just beginning. We’d only just turned the first page.17LoganI never make the same mistake twice.

Chloe presented her nervous smiling face back over at Franklin the very next day, and this time I did my professional duty to the best of my ability. I accompanied her around the ward with a much warmer smile, even if my words were somewhat limited.

I introduced her to Romi and Richard and Nadia from the day shift, and gestured her into one of our comfortable consultation rooms where she took a dainty perch on one of the seats.

She listened with little nods all the while I explained to her the importance of our ward here, and how we always put the patient before the prognosis, no matter at what stage of their road they are at.

“They aren’t cancer, or kidney failure, or COPD, they are themselves before anything, right to the very end. It's the job of palliative care to honour their wishes and give every scrap of support that can be given, both to them and their families.”

Another nod, a gracious smile, “I understand,” she said and I saw the truth of her in her eyes.

“Do you have any questions I haven’t answered yet?” I asked her, and those fingers of hers did their usual twiddle.

“Do many patients stay in here? Right until the end, I mean?”

I fixed my eyes on hers. “Some of them are able to go home comfortably for their final days, and some of them are able to go to a hospice for that final support. But there are many who say their goodbyes in front of us, right here on this ward, yes.”

Another nod from her, and I wanted her to know what that meant. What it really meant to watch someone pass away.

“It’s a hard place to be,” I told her. “No matter how prepared you think you are to help someone slip away, it’s a completely different experience to actually witness them take their final breaths, and then to witness the pain of the people surrounding them. It doesn’t come easily.”

She didn’t look fazed in the slightest, just shifted a little in her seat.

“My uncle passed away really slowly when I was twelve,” she said. “He was in the hospice in Halsey, and I visited him every day with my mum.” Her smile was so genuine and so kind. “It was hard to see him go like that, but the hospice staff were so supportive and so calm, you know? They tried their best to make him feel ok, right up until the end.”

“They did their hospice proud. I hope people feel the same about our ward.”

“I hope people feel the same about me, when I’m in here,” she said, and she meant it. There was such delicate humility and warmth in her words. “I always wanted to do my best for people, too. Just like they did for my uncle.”

“I’m sure you will do,” I told her.

“Thanks,” she said, with a fresh little blush rising through the freckles on her cheeks.

I took a breath before getting to my feet and calling our introduction session to a close.

She thanked me a lot on our way back through to Franklin’s double doors and told me how much she wanted the position with that effervescent grin on her face. It was intoxicating, just how alive that little bubble of excitement was at my side.

I watched her leave, admiring her trot down the corridor back towards Kingsley, then forced myself back to the severity of my world without her in it.

The next few days were a rush of the same harsh routine on loop.

My patients were struggling, and I did my best to be their relief. My mother’s petals were falling, and I couldn’t make them stop, I could only watch that clock keep on winding down, every night I stepped back through the doorway at home.

I was tired. Jaded. Aching from strained legs and a strained spirit along with them.

Nothing was able to pick me up.

I did my best to smile for everyone else and keep their souls soaring high, but mine was lost to everything. I was scraping the barrel of my days, without so much as a smile to perk me up on the train in the morning.