Latest Blog Post

𝙵𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎

Ella didn't hear the words right away. The hospital was too loud, too bright - buzzing lights, beeping monitors, footsteps, a cough behind a curtain. She focused on a bandage that needed changing, a chart to update, the tray of syringes shaking slightly in her hand. Just another routine day in the emergency room, until it wasn't.

Her coworker had approached gently, almost hesitantly, like they were delivering news that didn't belong in a place like this, where people were supposed to get better. The words came in fragments: no pulse.. DOA. At first, Ella blinked like she hadn't understood, like maybe it was someone else, some other man. Not hers. Not him. She had written those very letters too many times on someone else's chart. Never meant for her. Never meant for her husband.

Her first thought, absurdly, was not yet. As if death were a scheduled appointment and someone had arrived early without knocking. She was in her scrubs. She had rounds to finish. There hadn't been time to prepare, no slow unraveling, no chance to say goodbye. One minute she was Ella, the wife who danced in the kitchen at midnight, the woman who whispered secrets into his shoulder as they laughed - and the next, she was a widow.

She didn't cry. Not right away. Her breath left in a jagged exhale, sharp and sudden, like being kicked in the chest. Hands shaking, she found herself in the supply closet, leaning against shelves of gauze and gloves, trying to steady herself in a world that had shifted without warning. She stared at the wall, numb, hoping it might split open and offer her a way out.

Ten minutes passed before she stepped out again. Her eyes were dry. Her lips numb. Her name was probably still on the whiteboard - Nurse: Ella. Responsible. Reliable. Calm under pressure. And she still had two more hours left in her shift.

But something in her had ended. Quietly. Behind a door with peeling paint and a flickering light.