The Silence

Mr. Don Robinson is such a tiny man, a caricature of his own. He’s lying in his bed and smiles. He can’t speak. He moans from time to time. I was told that for a few years he’s been suffering from Alzheimer’s. Currently, Don can’t do anything besides looking surprised around and smiling when you say his name and to fidget helplessly with his hands. The rest of the student nurses, and the staff of the ward where is my clinical rotation say for him that he is very cute. Actually they call him a “sweetheart”, “love”, “sweetie pie” and all such kinds of diminutives which kind of sound inappropriate. After all, Don is seventy-years-old. Only ten-fifteen years ago he was a serious man, at his peak. He was an executive at a big company. Nobody, except maybe a flirty woman close to him, would have dared to call him a “sweetie pie”.

Don is at the word because he has aspiration pneumonia and he has to have infused antibiotics via an IV. I am in the ward because I learn the art of nursing on Don and the other patients - put IV’s, catheters, but mostly do assessments and chart for my preceptor.

I don’t know why but something always draws me to Don’s room. I like to cover him or uncover him if I think he is hot, to tuck him in, to speak to him. I ask him sometimes,

“Does anything hurt you, Don, here for example” and I poke him in the stomach but he is just silent with his silly, obliging smile on his lips. We have short conversations - actually, it’s only me speaking. He is either silent or moans a little at last- not from pain, just a form of expression, I guess. I even tell him things about my life - it’s a crazy thing. He probably doesn’t understand a word I say, just shakes his head with his constant smile.

When it’s time for medications, I give them to him with applesauce. With a spoon I touch his chin, he opens his mouth and I pour the content of the spoon - a medication and applesauce in his mouth, then the next and the next until the small medication cup is empty.

Sometimes I observe from the doorframe what Don is doing on his own. He is watching kids’ programs - whatever the nurses put on for him and think is appropriate and sometimes he looks out of the window. He is fidgeting with his hands. He doesn’t seem sad, or happy for that matter. Just surprised. Very surprised by what he sees - outside or on the TV. Even when I enter the room he seems surprised to see me. Sometimes I talk but of lately I am silent too so I can concentrate on what I am doing. I go to his IV pump, set the infusion and connect Don to the pump - all in silence. He doesn’t seem to mind. Don is like a small bundle, a bundle where the life still rests, though ready to fly away.

In a few days, I have a rotation at the Labor and Delivery ward. Honestly, I am a bit afraid. I am afraid of babies. They are so little, easy to harm, fragile - for a choice of a better word. The ward turns out to be a calm one. No babies being born left and right. The nurses leave us students to care for the mothers and their babies. The latter turns out not to be that scary after all. They just cry a lot. Something makes me feel uncomfortable about this. After Don’s silent room this racket seems out of the ordinary.


At last it happens - a mother is about to have a baby. I ask if I can be present at birth and I am allowed. The labor goes very easy - the mother is a bit obese and she had had a couple of kids already, so before I orient with what is what and the baby girl is out. A small bundle that is crying and is being loud in all the possible ways a baby can. Actually everyone in the delivery room is loud and excited. The mother - maybe because of what they gave her for pain or just the pain itself - is constantly joking between bouts of crying, the doctor is giving orders to the nurses in loud voice and they push me and tell me to stand “there, not there, but over there.” One way or another, without any contribution on my part the bundle of life, is born. They plump her down, still wet and crying, on her mother’s bosom, her mother hugs her and the little creature, found security and warmth, stops shrieking. She calms down. Something happens in the room. For a moment the doctor, nurses, mother, and the father - who lost his nerve and wasn’t present at the birth itself, but is now in the room - all freeze. A magical event has happened. All we are silent for a moment. I don’t know why the silence in the room reminds me of the numb Don, there, two floors below. As if the baby is aware of my thoughts and cries again. Yes dear, yes darling, those two who look at you with so much love are the culprits who put on the trap themselves. Don’s parents did it seventy years ago. We are born to die. The baby shrieks. The silence is broken. Even for an instant.