I sigh after each phone call; each sigh lasting longer and expelling more air — deflating me, shrinking me, emptying me. I sink lower into the chair, staring vehemently at the blinking cursor on the Discharge Summary template in a patient’s medical record.

I’ve created a shortcut phrase in the documentation system as “COVIDCANCELLATION” to save myself the agony of explaining why yet another patient can’t come in for treatment. It mocks me each time the computer auto-populates the phrase as I type “.COVIDCAN…”
COVID CAN wreak havoc. COVID CAN ruin lives. COVID CAN instill fear and impede good judgment. COVID CAN take a hike.

This isn’t how I’m supposed to discharge patients. I vowed to help them through the painful and difficult process of rehabilitation. Instead, I just call them to say goodbye, to apologize that I am leaving when they are still in need of help I could provide. I try to wash my hands of their hurt, their struggle, their pain – but the vain, repetitive scrubbing just leaves raw and painful patches.

I am being uprooted, but much of the uprooting is up to me. Some connections are relatively easy to snip and sever; others require tearing, breaking, sawing, grinding. It’s hard to know which end of the severed root feels the break more keenly. All this trimming, pruning, cutting… my hands, my arms – my heart – fatigue and ache deeply.

Farewells from six feet askance, without the familiar closure of an embrace. “See you…sometime” conversations. I bite my lip hard, then harder, as I carry the contents of my desk to the parking lot — as if my teeth could hold back the waves of emotion barraging my chest, my gut, my throat, the corners of my eyes and mouth.

Usually, I leave my assignments as a travel physical therapist with a spring in my step and a sense of completion, achievement, and excitement for the next adventure. This time, I am bowed with the weight of feelings of insufficiency, brokenness, anguish, fear, and a deep sense of loss. Loss of seeing my patients through to a satisfactory recovery of decreased pain and increased function. Loss of a dear family of coworkers. Loss of what could have – should have – been.

I had planned to stay on this assignment through the summer. I had planned on a fulfilling career (and a paycheck) until fall. I had planned on movie nights and picnics and tea parties and HUGS. But instead, I’m living in my parents’ pop-up camper (thanks, Mom and Dad!) for a week or two until I’m sure I didn’t bring any viral hitchhikers home. I’m revising my resume and writing a cover letter that asks for consideration of future employment, because clinics across the nation are under hiring freezes as they struggle to remain solvent.

We’re all struggling. All of us have lost something due to this virus. I recognize that I am far from having lost the most. But still, we all can mourn what we have lost. And then we can pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and look for what’s next.

SARS-CoV-2 has upended life as we know it. It’s hard to think of something that hasn’t been marred by its ugly hand. But when I go for a stroll to clear my head and catch my breath, I see it and hear it: green shoots pushing up through patches of snow, the dawn song of blackbirds and chickadees and robins, red buds emerging on the maple trees. Spring keeps on springing, just as it always does. And as is the common theme of my ventures in nature, I catch glimpses of the character of the Creator through His handiwork. Just as we can rely on spring to keep springing, without any human intervention, God keeps on God-ing (I think He’s ok with being a verb).
Among all the things that have changed due to COVID-19, God is not one of them. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He does not change like shifting shadows. He still cares for all of our needs. And He still plans to pick us up for a ride to His place (Hebrews 13:8, James 1:17, Matthew 6:25-33, John 14:1-3).

So, dear friend: Take a deep breath. Take a moment to mourn what you’ve lost during this season of change. Then dwell on the realization that God isn’t lost, and neither are you. ♥️