Working
the graveyard shift is one that generally doesn’t bother me. I'ts quiet and I
can get a decent amount of work done on the computer in the middle of the
night. It has sapped some of my sleep but I am still able to get most of what I
need to get done during the day so long as nothing pops up. It is a bit of a bother
but nothing that can’t be overcome.
Sleep
is something that can be made up, I certainly have on many of my days off, and
after a couple of good night’s sleep the tiredness is soon forgotten. However,
there is one thing that I can’t fully forget and, given the demographics of our
building, something that I am most likely to see again. I can’t seem to get the
last trips that some residents take through the lobby in the middle of the
night.
Unfortunately,
during a particularly unpleasant period over the first four months of the year
I watched as this happened three times. Each time I said good bye without the
expectation of a response. One of the residents I knew well while the others I
only knew by name. Either way, it is something that is very difficult to
witness and something that lingers with you during the overnight hours when you
know there are people up stairs that are in worse shape than those who have
passed.
These
departures were so regular that it had gotten to the point that I recognized
the medic that worked the same shift that I did whose job it was to check vitals
and confirm time of death. About 30-40 minutes after this unpleasant
declaration, the funeral home would arrive, recognize me behind the front desk,
and head over to the elevator. The next time I would see them was when the
elevator came back down, the doors opened, and they accompanied the resident
through their last trip across the lobby.
What
might have been more difficult than that period of time was that in the months prior
to the changing of the calendar I was asked to check on a resident who wasn’t
doing well but still insisted on living alone. Each night, I would head up to
his floor, open the unlocked door, and quietly walk down the hall and peek
around the corner to make sure he was breathing. Every time I walked through
the threshold I was terrified by what I might find. It wasn’t so much the fact
that I might find that the resident had passed peacefully in his sleep and was
no longer in pain it was more that I didn’t want to have to cause his children
pain by informing them of his departure.
A
couple months into the New Year, he also made his final journey through the
lobby. A stark contrast to the man I met shortly after my wife and I moved into
the building whose personality was barely contained by the concrete walls. That
night in particular is the one that I will never forget.
During
the night, when nothing is supposed to happen, it is these moments that are the
most difficult but also the ones that motivate me to continue pushing forward.
They also make me a more pleasant and tolerant person as I still say good
morning and good night to everyone that passes through on my shift no matter
what their response, or lack thereof, is going to be. But, more importantly, it
motivates me because I dread the night that I witness this again and, I admit a
little selfishly, I don’t want to be there when it happens.
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