When My Mother Became the Patient

Reflections on “Split,” published in HEAL: Humanism Evolving through Arts and Literature

There are days in medicine that change you quietly. Not with a dramatic case or a life saved, but with a loss you carry in your chest long after you have left the hospital.

For me, that day was when my mother came through the doors of the emergency department. My emergency department. The one where I knew every hallway, every code, every name on the board. The one where I had been the physician, the teacher, the steady presence for so many others. But not that day.

That day, I was her daughter.

My mother lived with us for ten years. She had her own apartment downstairs in our home, a space that was fully hers and yet deeply woven into our daily lives. The kids called it Nana’s and visited often for crafts, stories, snacks, or simply to be near her. She was independent, strong willed, and deeply present. She joined us for dinner often, and her rhythms became part of our own.

When she became acutely ill, she was brought by ambulance to the hospital where I work. My colleagues and friends received her at the stretcher. They were kind and attentive. They did everything right. But there was nothing they could do.

Watching someone you love decline is heartbreaking. Watching it happen in the place where you are supposed to know what to do creates a different kind of helplessness.

My poem Split, published in the Summer 2025 issue of HEAL, holds that moment. It does not try to fix it. It does not explain. It simply stays there, in the quiet space between roles. The place where medicine can no longer reach what matters most.

Writing this poem was not about resolution. It was about honoring the truth of what happened. About naming the space where the clinical disappears and all that is left is the human.

My mother died in that hospital. In the place I know best.

I do not remember every medical detail from that day. What I remember is her hand in mine. The sounds of the monitors behind us. The moment I realized I could not stop what was coming.

This poem is what I could offer. You can read it here, on page 11 of HEAL’s Summer 2025 issue:

👉 Read "Split"

If you have ever stood in the space between caregiver and family, between training and love, I see you. It is one of the hardest places to be. And one of the most human.

Thank you for reading.

—Veronica