I watched someone die yesterday

 and I watched someone come into the world yesterday. 

It was an interesting day at clinicals. I am almost a LPN now. I can’t believe how time flies. I feel as though I can definitely do the job (ability-wise). Emotionally, I don’t know. I get so choked up when anything serious happens. I am such an empath. I literally FEEL what other people around me are feeling. I can’t help it. Sometimes I am emotionally overwhelmed… overwhelmed by other people’s emotions.

They called a code over the loud speaker literally two seconds after the baby was born. I watched as the EMTs bring an elderly lady into the hospital. One of them was on the gurney straddling her and giving her CPR. I watched for a few of minutes. Every time they stopped giving her chest compressions I listened to her heartrate/EKG monitor. Her heart rate was so slow. It wouldn’t start back up. They opened her mouth wide and put a chest tube down her throat to get more air to her lungs. It looked so brutal. They continued to do chest compressions for a few more minutes. They all had to take turns because they were getting tired. The doctor called her time of death. Her significant-other was there. He looked worried while they were compressing. When they stopped he cried. 

They have a saying in the hospital: "One life comes into the world, and another life goes out." I have never experienced it before… until yesterday. And I didn’t know they meant within the same hospital. I guess that’s what they meant. 

Now, though, I feel numb to it all. I think I should be more disturbed by what I saw yesterday. Maybe I should meditate on this. I know I am now looking at this from a Hindu/Buddhist standpoint. I chalk it up to Samsara (the cycle of birth and death—the endless cycle). It really makes you think. Why is the world like this? Why are we here? Why do we have to die? What happens to us when we die? Where were we before we were born? 

I saw a sign yesterday that made me laugh:

Eat right. Exercise. Die anyway.