Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live
– Dr Jillian, hepatologist at Columbia Irving Medical Centre, New York, US.
When Jillian was pregnant and working in the intensive care unit (ICU), she disguised her growing abdomen with the largest fleece jacket she could find. It wasn’t just about her discomfort with the changing shape. There was something that felt incongruous — disrespectful, almost — about displaying the promise of unsullied new life amid all the tragedy.
So she was surprised to find herself, one morning, standing at the bedside of an intubated older man, discussing Halloween costumes for children.
As nurse Gloria gently cleaned the patient’s frail body, she said, “You know, my daughter dressed as Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’. It was a hit.”
Offering a weary smile, Jillian’s attention alternated between the conversation and the critical readings on the patient’s monitor.
“She’s only nine months old, so the whole ghosts and goblins thing is lost on her,” she responded.
“Hopefully next year, she’ll be able to enjoy it,” Jillian added, her eyes briefly meeting Gloria’s before refocusing on the fluctuating numbers on the screen.
For Jillian’s patients in the ICU, there would often be no next year. She had long pondered how her frequent exposure to death affected her interactions and perceptions outside the unit.
However, upon returning to work after her maternity leave, she discovered how this unexpectedly all-consuming love for her radiant daughter changed her as a doctor.
It wasn’t just about managing her life as a physician alongside new motherhood. It was about acknowledging joy while experiencing loss, a balance she grappled with daily in the hospital, now more than ever.
Every morning, Jillian would rush into the ICU, still carrying the sweet smell of her baby. Occasionally, she used the same singsong rhyme that she employed to calm her child to soothe her delirious patients.
Once, after a man just a few years older than her took his final breaths, she checked her phone outside his room to see a new photo of Bella from her nanny – beaming with two little bottom teeth and shaking a maraca.
Jillian never shared any of this with her patients or their families, at least not until she found herself in the room of a dying man who was reminiscing about sweet potato fries.
We all have traditions centred around holiday food, but for Jillian, far more powerful rituals revolved around hospital food. Chocolate chip cookies during weekend rounds, residency muffins, and now, thick-cut, supposedly baked sweet potato fries before every overnight shift.
One night, she was leaving early enough to feed Bella dinner. And so she was in the cafeteria, waiting for an order of sweet potato fries when Jillian ran into the wife of one of her patients.
There was something so intimate about witnessing what people chose to eat in that setting, often just after receiving the bad news that Jillian tempted to look away. This time, however, it was too late.
The wife caught Jillian watching her select a grilled cheese sandwich, possibly on one of the last nights of her husband’s life.
Jillian blushed under the wife’s steady gaze. She glanced at her pocket watch, hoping to appear preoccupied, but her embarrassment only intensified as she realised the wife was still staring intently at her.
Feeling cornered, Jillian put the watch away and met the wife’s eyes. They gave each other a slight nod.
The following day, she entered a patient’s room to find a roomful of people holding vigil. The wife, along with his brothers and friends, were gathered around.
The patient was readmitted to the ICU weeks earlier for a high-risk procedure. After a series of complications, he decided that he did not want to undergo any more aggressive interventions. This was it — his loved ones had come to say their goodbyes.
The room quieted. Jillian had to interrupt respectfully, make small talk then place her stethoscope on the patient’s chest and listen to the rise and fall of his breath, the gurgle of fluid in his lungs. His eyes were half closed. He appeared comfortable.
As she stood there, taking in the situation, the wife posed Jillian a question. Not about her husband — she wanted to know whether Jillian had gotten the sweet potato fries she was waiting for.
The family looked toward her, curious, clearly eager for a story that had nothing to do with illness.
Happy to oblige, Jillian explained, “Yes, but those weren’t for me.
“The fries were for my little girl at home.”
Her words briefly lifted the heavy air in the room.
Immediately, someone chimed in with a light-hearted query, “Fries for a baby! How old is she, doc?”
Someone else asked if the baby enjoyed the fries.
Jillian chuckled and admitted, “Well, it turned out to be a bit of a letdown, but it was worth a try.”
“Of course it was,” the wife weighed in, smiling. “Babies don’t need to eat sweet potato fries. They should just eat the entire potato.”
Suddenly, the entire group began sharing their own experiences and advice about motherhood.
Stepping away, Jillian wondered whether she had shared too much and laughed a bit too loudly in a room where a man was dying. Still, the sound of their shared laughter, clinging to moments of levity, reassured her.
She understood that she could not bring the person they loved back or stop his inexorable slide toward death. Even so, she could connect with them through a funny story about her baby and maybe a reminder — however small — that there is life even in loss.
That night, Jillian arrived home too late for dinner with her baby. Bella was already in the bath, splashing about and babbling with her bath toys. She washed her hands, scrubbing away the layers of the day, and then scooped her up from her bath, warm and beautiful and gentle in her fluffy towel.
As she kissed Bella, memories of the family keeping vigil came to mind, and then Bella giggled, pulling Jillian fully into the moment. In that instant, the ICU receded into the background.
Perhaps that was the best she could do to be present at home and in the hospital and the joy and the loss. To laugh about sweet potato fries. And to love, knowing it is all precarious.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
