…until you’ve spent 48 hours in a strapped-for-cash, small town hospital’s intensive care ward, experiencing someone’s death.

Early Friday morning, SharkBoy’s father left us. On Thursday, his sister and he were forced to make the most difficult decision in anyones life. I won’t go into personal details but it involved morphine and DNR (do not resuscitate). And waiting.

I was there only to offer emotional and physical support while this whole thing was happening. What made this difficult for me was that I could only understand every 10th word or so because I don’t speak French. Even if I did, I doubt that it would have been my place to offer anything other than a shoulder to cry on – it was an intensely private family affair played out in front of emotionless. yet somewhat sympathetic, hospital staff. At one point SharkBoy turned to me and said “How do they do it? How can they work here every day and not feel something?”

I watched this particular ward’s staff from that point on. They did show emotion but they kept it down, hidden from worried or distressed families. The male nurse attending SharkBoy’s dad had just finished documenting something and sat unmoving with his head down for a solid 2 minutes as if to lock something down. Two nurses shared a whispered joke and a stifled, short giggle so we could not hear. One night doctor, after his rounds through the ward, checked his email from a nearly-private monitor. So they were human too, they just kept it discreetly out of sight so that our own humanity came first. The ward’s staff were automatons who made the minor decisions and left us to the big ones, with big consequences.

The last couple days echoed back to when my step father died. When the doctor mentioned administering morphine to SharkBoy’s dad, I was reminded of when my step father was dying and my sister and mother had to make similar decisions. When the Quebec doctor launched into a long trail of French and I finally caught the word morphine it sent me from the room stifling tears. I knew what was coming.

Through it all, SharkBoy and family retained their sense of humour which punctuated the entire ordeal. Obviously I missed some of it in translation but it was there. They related a lot of stories in that short time, which made the good times come forth, shining chunks of life emerging out of the gloom of that hospital room. All part of being human.