The Solidarity of Tears 5 comments

By Brian Volck

"What are they?”
“They're called Thestrals. They're quite gentle, really...but people avoid them because they're a bit....”
“Different. But why can't the others see them?”
“They can only be seen by people who've seen death.”
           —Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood, from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Fatherhood made me a better pediatrician. I lost the dogmatism found in textbooks. I gained first-hand acquaintance with the anxious fear of parents whose child is suddenly ill or vulnerable. And I learned over and again the first, most important lesson of parenthood: you are not in control.

Fatherhood also lent my advice needed street cred. Assuring parents of a colicky baby, “this too shall pass,” gains authority when you add your own harrowing war stories. Over time, my encounters with parents grew less directive, more collegial.

I’ve worked for years in the company of mothers and grandmothers who neither resemble me nor enjoy my social and economic advantages. They—and their children—have been my best, most demanding teachers, gracing me with stories of intimacy and power. I’ve shared, in what little way I could, my families’ triumphs and losses.

Fatherhood cracks many walls.

At bottom, fatherhood gave me context for the drama I was already part of. Before, I grounded empathy in pure imagination; now I better understood what a parent stands to lose. By nature, I’m more fearful than worried, but the fusion of pediatrics and parenthood feeds both vices.

I’m not claiming that parents who are pediatricians—or any medical professional—have it worse than others. I am suggesting that those who’ve witnessed a young patient’s light sputter out before them despite their best efforts, who know firsthand that some children die, find parental fears and potential losses come in a special flavor.

I’ve stood back, worried, helpless, and far too aware of what might go badly, during my son’s brief hospital stays. I’ve come home to ferociously embrace my surprised children after witnessing or learning of a patient’s death. I’ve briefly pondered, usually when my wife’s out of town, how some Emergency Room disaster I’d once been on the receiving end of—a slip at a busy crosswalk or chance collision—might irrevocably transform our family.

My work repeatedly teaches me what you, no doubt, already know: life is precious, fragile, and unfair. The wonders of science and technology haven’t changed that.

I once liked to imagine this helps me better share experiences of people like Sam, a colleague whose first child, a son, arrived soon after Easter. Sam’s a strong, quiet man about to start a fellowship in Pediatric Cardiology. He has a delightful way of drawing patients and co-workers in, of putting them at ease while he conveys weighty information.

I like to remind students that a doctor who wants to care for patients must first learn how to love them, however hard that might be. From what I can see, Sam needs no reminders.

Though we’ve worked together, I don’t know Sam that well—just enough to like what I see. I’ve met his wife, who works as a kindergarten teacher, once. Sam and I have talked, pleasantly and in passing, about non-medical matters: music, the Navajo, and kids. He’s not the kind who shares his life story upon introduction.

But Sam was radiant upon his return from paternity leave. “So happy,” was all one of the hospital social workers could say about Sam. Fatherhood visibly remade his world and we, his co-workers, felt our hearts lift in his presence.

None of us were prepared, then, for the chief residents’ announcement at a recent noon conference: Sam had awakened that morning to discover his three-week-old son dead, presumably of SIDS.

The conference room grew still after a collective gasp. Heads hung. Some wept or whispered prayers. Gradually, feelings of great sadness, disbelief, and anger found words.

Over the next several days, between times when all had to hide our grief in order to care for the living, an outpouring of sadness and practical solidarity took shape. We, Sam’s colleagues, can hold one another up, but what of Sam and his wife?

When your infant is gone, how do you get up in the morning, and why? What reasons might you possibly find for meals or anything resembling a routine? What is it to you that the sun still shines, that the reawakening world bursts with colors of spring? How will you carry your eternal grief when even your well-wishers appear to forget?

And how will the parents ever know when it’s time to return to work when both work so visibly with young children? Since the visitation, I find it hard to see any infant without recalling two parents bravely consoling their weeping consolers before a white casket the size of a carpenter’s toolbox.

How much more difficult will it be for them? When will my colleague ever place his stethoscope on a child’s chest without recalling his son’s heart stilled, his own heart shattered? When will his wife ever meet a preschooler without recalling the future she imagined for her son?

Sam and his wife now possess a bitter knowledge they never sought and none would ever wish for. Whatever else their lives may bring, the room in it named “parenthood” forever shelters a beloved son and a misshapen creature most cannot see.

Sam said to me at the visitation, in a voice half whisper and half sob, “It’s not fair.” Perhaps parents from earlier centuries, when childhood death was terribly common, said the same. There have never been words to make it otherwise.

What then do I do, blind as I am to the abyss of their grief? What I say to Sam and his wife may matter, though only a little. The best I can do is join them on humanity’s long and crowded mourning bench, where the words that matter are prayers and the surest signs of solidarity are tears.