The first waiting room is the E.R., chaotic, bright, the holding room for many paths. Next, it’s the surgery waiting room, medical staff appear in the door and summon, hushed conversations ensue. Then the people go, gathering their things in a hurry, smiling or wiping away tears of relief, or the other kind.

The third waiting room is where we stay. When visiting hours come, we gather at the door waiting to be allowed in, supplicants all, craving mercy. We hurry to peer at our person anxiously. We turn our faces up to the monitors, trying to interpret them as though they are hieroglyphics that will reveal our fates. We hold conversations with with doctors, with words, hard to understand, like drinking water from a firehose, and with our loved ones with their eyes, even harder to understand, and then we all go back to the Waiting Room.

The I.C.U. Waiting room is in three parts. To the left is a large room with a large family, loud and raucous. They have turned their vigil into a party, complete with a buffet on one of the tables. A woman shares a detailed story of her victory over some hapless clerk at Verizon while eating a chicken wing. She is the hero of the story.

In the middle room is one man, sitting and staring blankly into space, his hat in his lap. Someone comes for him and he hesitates, as though trying to decide, and then gets up and follows them.

In the third room is us. We gather in this way station for a journey no one wants to be on. Still, there is laughter and visits from old friends, and moments when you can forget why you are here. Love zings back and forth across the threads that bind us together, all the years, all the history.

Once on the way to the hospital I was behind a car with a sticker on its back windshield. It had the name of a fallen law enforcement officer and the words “End of Watch”, with the date. I notice the clouds and the flowers, and take in everything green before I go into the dimness again, to wait.

And then one day, we leave for the last time. The place that has become so familiar, that we hope we will never see again. We thank and hug the people that have been so kind and gentle with us. We find our way out of the maze of corridors, and stand together on the sidewalk, looking at the first sunset she will never see. We go our separate ways for now but soon we will come back together to begin all the calls, plans and arrangements that must be made as we send someone off on the journey we all must take. Our waiting over for now. End of watch.

Dedicated to Nancy Kay Wilstach, 8/22/45-6/2/26.

A tiny force of nature, who lived liked a Hurricane and left us like a gentle spring rain. Who was my biggest cheerleader as a writer, and would have been the first to read this. You will be missed.