What you don’t know is that I, too, am shattered.
I cry the whole way home. I looked up your daughter on Facebook. She was beautiful. Just graduated high school. She had a whole life and world ahead of her. It isn’t fair.
I beat my steering wheel and rage when I get home and park. I throw my nursing bag across the kitchen. I drop to the floor, like you, and cry.
Though I’m too young for children even close to your daughter’s age, I have a younger brother who is 18. He does just what your daughter was doing: riding around the back roads with friends late at night. It could have just as easily been him wrapped around that light pole dead in the road.
I am sorrier than you will ever know. Honestly, you can’t know. But I do. And hopefully, your daughter does, too. I never knew her, but I grieved her just the same.
We nurses may not show it at times, we are unable to show it—whether it be to save face, hospital policy, or to just be courageous and supportive—but we care. Your hurts are our hurts. We grieve with you. So please, just know that your grief is felt. It is shared.”
