“I look ridiculous,” Greta said. There wasn’t a mirror in
the NICU washroom, but she didn’t need one. She affixed the surgical mask over
her face as Jonathan made tiny adjustments to the infectious diseases suit she
was forced to wear. She gingerly returned to her wheelchair, the effort of
scrubbing up and dressing taking way too much out of her.
“It’s either this or you wait until your infection is gone
to see her.” Jonathan shrugged. Greta knew he was far too exhausted to be sympathetic
with her nerves, but she was too exhausted to try and keep her frayed emotions
from surfacing.
“I didn’t come all this way…” she trailed off, trying to
keep the tears at bay.
“I know,” Jonathan patted her shoulder. It’s how it had
always been with them, him calming her with just a gesture and a couple of
words. “Shall we?” He asked, beginning to push her wheelchair into the NICU.
She nodded silently, nervously taking in the scene. Two rows
of incubators and cribs housing tiny fragile beings sprawled on either side of
her as they made their way to her daughter’s incubator. It was a flurry of
organized chaos with nurses and doctors hovering all around. She watched as some
parents held their children, cords and IV lines dangling while others hovered
over incubator shells, some putting hands into the incubator just to hold their
babies tiny fragile arms, others not even afforded that luxury.
“There she is.”
Jonathan said, beaming as their little girl squirmed within her incubator.
Tears broke free from her eyes as she saw her daughter for the third time in
six days. Her daughter’s beauty coupled with her fragile state was too much to
bear.
“She’s incredible,” Greta cried out.
“Yeah she is,” Jonathan smiled tiredly.
They all are,
Greta thought to herself as she looked out over the sea of fragile babies and
sent them all her love.
*******************************************
The above story was for Trifecta's Mask Challenge.
6 comments:
That was beautiful!
I've always thought it would be rewarding and yet potentially quite heartbreaking to work with premature babies. They are so incredibly vulnerable.
That was lovely and well told.
My brother was a "preemie" back in the sixties. I imagine this was similar to what my parents went through.
Thanks for the tender look!
Thanks Kymm, whispatroy and Aurora for your lovely comments.
Visiting the NICU is never an easy experience. It's filled with a lot of emotions. I'm glad to see from your comments that I captured all that.
That's sweet.
So much emotion here. Thanks for linking up!
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