Atonement

For all the wrongs I have done, please let me suffer to make them right.

No one can explain guilt. Not this kind. Looming over my head like a guillotine. I want to absolve it. But it want it to take me away. Cut off the air to my lungs. Make me cease to exist. The agony of guilt is worse than the action that caused it.

I watched my mum die. In such a horrific horrible ending. I watched as the life was sucked out of her, slowly, agonisingly, over hours. Until the final moment and I stood in horror as the devil itself manifested it’s evil. I, a nurse, should’ve seen this. I should’ve helped. Not run away. Not screamed in horror as the bile flowed like lava, her eyes, rolled back lifeless. I failed my mother and I will live with failure until the day I die.

I live with the secret. Of not telling my family, my father that she died a violent death. Me, my mother and the 2 other nurses that had to help where I failed. Believe me there is nothing more distressing than seeing the person who nurtured who, loved you, accepted you, die a slow undignified death.

The vision in my head is with me every day. Not every moment. But those moments when your remember what a shitty person you are. When you’ve done shitty things to people, been unreasonable, had arguments. It all comes back to flood your mind and drown your conscience. You are a shitty person. No wonder no one loves.

Atonement. How do I atone for my sins? How do I absolve myself of this guilt?

I swore after she died, I’d never be a nurse again. I couldn’t stand to be anywhere near a ward. The smell. The hopelessness. The reminders. I’d let down the one person who loved me unconditionally. Yet, Covid. Could this be a way to atone? To return to the wards. To see the grief and suffering again, to force myself to do better. Be a better nurse.

If I could handle the flashbacks of that night I could handle anything. There really is no pain like it. Except this time, I’d do my job properly. Not be overcome by the horrors that sometimes nursing throws at you. But this wasn’t a completely altruistic decision. I had an ulterior motive.

For weeks, I’ve begging, let me get it. Let me die. Let it be me, no one else. No one here deserves to die like I do. I’ve done wrong. Let me atone for my sins. Please don’t take anyone else. I’ve lost several colleagues now. Each one a haunting reminder of the cruelness of this virus. It will pick and chose who it takes. While I caught it, it did not take me. And I can’t describe my crushing disappointment that sometimes I am still alive while my colleagues are not. Life is fucking cruel.

I don’t know if this is enough. If this will absolve me of my guilt. Of my failings as a nurse, but more importantly, as a daughter. I let down the most important patient of all and I still want to beat myself up every day.

Atonement. Please absolve me of my sins.