HOME

“Carson, it’s time for you to go home now. Get out of here while you can.”

My partners rescue me and tell me that from time to time, and I sure am relieved to hear it. I’m going home! Exhausted, I try to stay awake on the blurry drive home from my 36-hour shift at the hospital, but I can’t seem to turn my brain off from the flurry of messages and memories about my patients, ricocheting around inside my skull.

Did I check the x ray on Mrs. Smith?
Did I adjust the antibiotic dose for renal failure?
Damn, the anticoagulants are still on her med list. Got to stop them because the platelet count is dropping.

But eventually, I do get home, log on to the hospital computer to make sure I correct the lingering patient care thoughts banging around in my quickly fading brain, and lay on the couch that has been longing for me. I feel hunger, but I’m too wasted to think of cooking, so I grab a few scraps in the refrigerator, or a couple slices of bread that are just waiting for a thick pile of peanut butter.

For me, fatigue will overcome hunger easily and that’s what usually happens until I fall out of bed in the morning and gorge myself , rejuvenated by world class, world traveling – goofy REM sleep.

Problem is, when I’m exhausted, my brain stubbornly refuses to turn off; it’s wired to survival mode for so long I guess, that it refuses to quit. Maybe it thinks it will malfunction or neuronal death is imminent. So I don’t sleep. Mind you, my brain has felt death before, believe me, and it won’t allow it. Or maybe it won’t accept it consciously – or more specifically, my separate soul-consciousness longs for the non – earthly perfection of paradise love it knows is there, but it represses it so my earthly consciousness will live.

Instead, I think. Then those two beautifully horrible images re – appear. Can’t stop it.

Yes, I don’t think about these things on purpose. It happens. The word “home” invades my cerebral cortex now and it sets up shop for a while. Where is home? What is home?

Well Carson, you idiot, it’s where you are now, in your house laying on your couch, trying to read a book but realizing that your eyes won’t stay open without toothpicks, yet your brain refuses to release to sleep. That is home. Carson you’re a moron.

Then, I remember the two lost ones again. They always creep in when I’m weakened. Samson’s hair is cut, and the enemies attack. I shudder a little when the heavy memories return, then I smile with the good ones, right before that damn granny apple core lodges in my throat again.

They’re gone.

I think I understood home at one time. Yes, it was when I came home on Christmas break in high school to be with family and have celebrations, good home cooking and all that stuff. Yeah, that was home. In fact, I remember home when I flew back to it on occasion for holidays when I was a cadet at the Air Force Academy. And for a while, I remember a home when those two lost ones were still with me. I looked forward to seeing their young and innocent faces, hearing their laughter, helping them when they needed help, and guidance when they were growing.

Yeah that was home for some time.

The memories of those two inject themselves into my mind again, my hair is still cut, and the couch won’t protect me.

But for quite a few years now, it seems I’ve acclimated to a different kind of home. I’ve got a house to enjoy and yes, that’s a home – at least in the classic definition. But really, my home includes a much broader definition than I’ve ever realized, of necessity, probably because my life has changed so drastically.

During my rare social situations, I don’t discuss the lost ones because of the awkward pain, and the difficulty in describing the loss to cheerful, innocent humans. You see, my home no includes the hospital and its staff and the colleagues I work closely with on a daily basis, trying our best in an imperfect and difficult medical world to save lives and ease pain. They have become part of my family – brothers and sisters – my work family and thus, part of my “home” that is not my physical house.

Then, the memories strike again briefly, when I least expect them. My mind savors the pleasant ones, and then quickly attempts to delete the devastating ones, and it does so successfully and temporarily.

Then I remember my close friends who I love and who love me and the smile starts to hurt with pleasure. I remember the hospital staff who brought me back from near death about fifteen months ago and the warmth overcomes me.

I am at peace with myself.
While the pain is always there, it is easily reversed when I realize that love is all that matters. C.S. Lewis successfully described the “Four Loves” and he did a spectacular job as always. But really, love doesn’t follow the rules: It is all encompassing, all forgiving, non –judgmental and always giving to others.

And yes, strong, single men are capable of saying the word “love”.

I feel the love of my global “home” and despite my devastating losses, I undertand what a lucky man I am and will always be on this temporary but beautiful earth as long as I remember God’s love for me.

SRC