The Secret in Every Hospital Hallway: Why Life Is Worth Fighting For

 There is a truth hospitals don’t put on brochures:  

They are where the living and dying collide.  

Where the scent of bleach can’t mask the metallic tang of blood.  

Where the clock ticks louder for some than others.  

If you’ve ever wanted to disappear, stand here. 

 

Watch.  

Watch the man in the waiting room

clutching a coffee cup like it’s the last warm thing on earth.  

His wife is in surgery. He hasn’t slept in 27 hours.  

He stares at the floor, counting cracks in the tiles, bargaining with a God he stopped believing in years ago.  

Take my legs. Take my eyes. Just let her live.

You think your life is yours to throw away?  

His is unraveling, and he’d trade his soul to keep hers.  

Listen to the mother in the NICU 

humming a lullaby to a baby smaller than her forearm.  

The wires and tubes are a spiderweb of science trying to cheat death.  

She doesn’t cry. Not here. Not yet.  

Instead, she presses her lips to the glass, breathing fog onto it, as if her warmth could seep through.  

Grow, she pleads. Just grow. 

You want to quit?  

This child has never seen the sky, but it fights for the chance.  

Feel the weight of the old woman’s hand 

As she grips her dead husband’s wedding band.  

They told her to leave the room while they “prepare” him.  

She refuses. She’s seen him through war, bankruptcy, and six decades of mornings.  

She will see him through this, too.  

When they peel back the sheet, she traces his cheek and says, You forgot your glasses. 

She tucks them into his shirt pocket.  

Don’t lose them again.

You think love is a fairy tale?  

This is how it ends: with a whisper and a pair of glasses.  

Hospitals don’t care about your pain.  

They’re too busy hosting a thousand private apocalypses.  

A teenager’s first panic attack in the psych ward.  

A migrant worker stitching his own wound in the bathroom to avoid a bill.  

A nurse hiding in a supply closet, eating cold pizza, because her 12-hour shift became 16.  

No one is coming to save them.  

And still, they show up. 

You came here to learn how to die?

            Let me teach you how to live:  

It’s the man donating his son’s heart, liver, kidneys—emptying the body he once rocked to sleep—so others might see tomorrow.  

It’s the addict in the ER, trembling through withdrawal, begging for a second chance he doesn’t think he deserves.  

It’s the janitor mopping up vomit at 3 a.m., humming a hymn, because someone’s got to keep this place holy.  

                Survival isn’t pretty.

 Stay

Not because life is kind.  

Not because you owe it to anyone.  

But because there’s a man in a waiting room, a mother in the NICU, a nurse in a supply closet, doctor who is doing everything  to save peope and they’re all choosing, right now, to outlast the night.  

                     You can, too.  

Dedicated to the broken ones still breathing. 

If you’re hurting: Breathe. Then breathe again. The world needs you—not your productivity, your smiles, or your strength. Just you.  

If this hurts, let it. Then go find someone who needs to hear it.  

We’re all just walking each other home.

          Remeber You are not alone 

Note to readers: If you’re struggling, please reach out. The world is better with you in it.

Dr.Sheetal Goenka

HealthWithSheetal.