Debts

The world shudders, as trucks scream by, and wakes from a waking dream The girl that drives home from long nights, missing cars and trees But missing more her husband and three children who now lie sleeping there She said she’d be back three hours ago, in time for their night prayer When she sees her husband resting, tired to the bone She says to herself, so quietly, “This is how much I owe”.

Returned to work consultants bark, like a three-headed dog insatiate They say you must be bitten here, if you want to pass this gate So she worked on, through days and nights, digging deep beneath her skin Knowing that those who make her bleed, have the keys to let her in And when at the last hour of light her boss rounds, holding her in tow She looks at her unwilling feet and says, “This is how much I owe”.

The shift end comes round but sirens howl, bloody cacophonies That shriek “Mr M’s dehisced again, so run to bedroom 3” An hour later he’s still alive but can’t be left untended So, she waits, unmoving, as quiet, still night descended Her four-year-old boy sleepily ponders “When’s she coming home?” Her only thought in reply, “This is how much I owe”.

Her tired thoughts brought memories back of nightly vigils made For her mum and dad to take her back from Grandma’s, two hours late. “Contentment breeds failure,” they said. “So work harder than you need, “Our family pride relies on you, on every word and deed.” Though now both passed, she feels them watch her struggle here below. She hangs her head and says to herself, “This is how much I owe”.

Like a doll caught amongst children’s hands and fighting, screaming, shouts, She felt her seams tear and come loose and all her insides out As she watched her patient fade, vacillating to and fro from death. She felt she was the one ready to die, to cede her one last breath But looking around, her patient’s there and, to herself who’d sunk so low, She thought quietly, “I cannot leave, for this is how much I owe”.

Dressed in black, the piano’s dirge gave voice to all our pain, Not for her patient but a friend, a doctor lost again. For she, like her, had felt heavy debts tied to hold her down But unlike her, she couldn’t find the keys before she drowned. If we look at those who’ve gone before, that our system breaks when it should grow, We have to stop and ask ourselves, how much do we owe?

Dr Matthew Lennon is a junior doctor at Wagga Base Hospital. He has interests in bioethics, neurology and puns (because jokes make great medicine).

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