An Empty Tank

So many feelings, everywhere, all at once, swirling inside me like a storm I can’t outrun.

They rise and fall like waves: sadness, anger, frustration, helplessness. I feel them all, pressing, pulling, choking.

They settle in my stomach like stones, heavy and unmoving. I carry them with me through the hospital, behind my eyes, in my chest, in my prayers. 

There are days when I wonder how my heart keeps beating under the weight of it all.

“Why, God?” I whisper. “Why?”

Some days I scream it inside myself so loudly I’m sure the whole ward can hear it echo.

“Have You forsaken this place? These people? These nurses? Us?”

Death is everywhere.
Every day.

Too often it comes for the young. Too often it comes for those who could have been save.

If only we had what we needed.
If only the oxygen tank wasn’t empty.
If only there was a bed in the ICU.
If only there were more nurses, more resources, more time.
If only.

Today, the oxygen tank is empty again. His oxygen saturation is 60%. I know what that means. I know what’s coming. And I’m screaming inside.

He looks up at me, wide-eyed and gasping. A young man, just barely more than a boy.

His eyes plead, Save me.

I can see it in his gaze, feel it in the way his fingers grip my wrist, hear it in the sharp, broken inhale of his breath.

Please…save me.

And I want to.

God, how I want to.

But I know we won’t.

I know we can’t.

We don’t have what we need. Not today. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not ever.

And that truth slices through me in a way I can’t explain, like watching someone drown while your arms are tied to your sides.

The nurses move around me. I see the defeat in their eyes too. It’s familiar now. Worn in like old skin.

They look at me and say, “It’s not easy.”

And I nod, because what else can I say?

They’re right. It’s not easy. It’s never been easy. But some days—it feels impossible.

We do what we can. We try. We always try.
We pray before procedures we know might not succeed.
We stand at the beside of patients in respiratory distress, watching their oxygen saturations fall despite our best efforts.
We hold hands that are burning with fever and shaking with sepsis.
We watch as they take there final breaths.

And then we gather ourselves, step to the next bed, and start again.

Because we have to.

Sometimes I feel like I’m unraveling at the seams, grasping for faith, for hope, for some sort of answer to the chaos. But the truth is I don’t have one.

Not right now. Just questions. Just heartbreak. Just the raw, aching grief of knowing that someone’s son died today when he didn’t have to.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.
Maybe we’ll have oxygen.
Maybe the medicines will come.
Maybe we’ll have just enough staff, just enough strength, just enough grace to get through another day.

But today, all I have is this.
An empty tank.
A heavy heart.

And a prayer spoken through tears that maybe, just maybe, God will meet me in the middle of this brokenness, and remind me why I’m still standing.

Because somehow, in all of it, I’m still here.
And for now… that has to be enough.