Bluesky

St. Denis of Paris,patron saint of migraines, be my guardian. Teach me tooto walk this world

without a head. Like you, to carry it gently as a newborn.Early this morningmy daughter Lucy called me as she was walking home from

the pediatric intensivecare unit where she works as a senior resident. “One of my patientsdied last night,”

she told me. “Another is circling the drain. Both fourteen years old.”I said whatevera father is supposed to say to reassure his child,

who grew uptoo fast, that the world is still a place worth living in.Let me hold

my aching head like a lantern, shine its unshuttableblind eyesinto the darkness around us. St. Denis, speak through me. Help me

tell Lucy, the rootof whose name in Latin means light, to forgive herselffor not being able

to save that fourteen-year-old girl. For not knowing what to sayto the girl’s grievingfamily. For having to say to the other fourteen-year-old’s parents

that their sonmay not make it through the night. Let our bare feet forgivethe glass shards

we walk on. Let the man bleeding out in the gutter forgivethe hit-and-rundriver. No amount of morphine or fentanyl is going to ease

the painof being here, then not being here. I am a man walking aroundcity streets at dawn

without his head. I hold it like a ventriloquist holdshis dummy.It says stupid things. I am still learning to forgive myself for living

while othersdie. The monitor keeps reading the fourteen-year-old boy’s heart rate,blood pressure, oxygen

saturation, respiration, body temperature. The numbers keepfluctuating. The wavyoscillating lines are the scribbles I at four years old

once drew in a blanknotebook to show my mother I too knew how to write lettersand words that had meaning.