In the past week, there have been two deaths within my circle of friends, one of a friend's parent, one of a friend's child.
There is grief paired with the sense that I am getting off easy.
I was speaking to a mentor, a retired internist who pioneered palliative care at the academic institution where I trained decades ago.
His advice to me: I hope you are crying. That's important. You will cry, and then you will face your grief. Perhaps find a spiritual place to be alone, observe a ritual that brings solace.
He told me that at the end of each week on the palliative care service, he would drive to the ocean and walk along the sand as a closing ritual.
My friend is a pious man. Once a year, on retreat at a monastery, he would write down all the names of the most difficult palliative cases and leave them on an altar, asking the Lord take over the cases from him - the first I've heard of a celestial patient sign out.
[The skeptic in me wants to know: Does God take call? Work nights? Or has God left clinical work for an administrative position? But my friend is too generous for me to be unkind through my irreverence.]
He explains that his work in medicine was distressing but important. By passing his difficult experiences onto a divine being, he was ultimately able to unshoulder himself of the burden it had caused him.
This is on my mind as I prepare to attend a Zoom funeral, followed immediately by a shift.