A Poem for Henry

I pass his picture each morning, but on most I don’t stop;most days I fail to remember that I am in his presence,that he may be longing to be in mine.Something about today, though, gives me pause;I don’t continue in my busy rush through the bustling hospital,but notice his bright face seeking mine from the wall.In this moment, he is whole and still so vibrantly alive;Henry as an intern, a clinician, a newly minted physician—clearly eager to tackle illness and death and the world.I can see in his eyes that he is capable, confident;a consummate professional in the uniform of his profession.He is responsible and resplendent, ready and resilient.What I don’t see, what I fear I could never have seen,are the demons that were slowly overtaking him;I can’t feel the crushing weight of his insurmountable anguishor hear the deafening voice of his irrepressible doubt.I don’t know if he was consumed by an overpowering guilt,filled with regret and languishing in self-recrimination;I can’t tell if he was burdened with the shame of a perceived deficiency,overwhelmed by an inability to capture the magic of medicine,the alchemy of his trade, the potion by which he was healing his patients.He could not access the portal he was guiding them into,was unable to become a fellow traveler on their journeytowards wellness, towards wholeness, towards hopefulness.We who are still living are left to wonder: was his a gradual descent?An imperceptible gravitation towards a depression from which he could not recover?Was there a catalyst? A cataclysm, inexorably leading him to the catacombs of suicide?Perhaps it was a bad outcome? A difficult encounter?The impossibility of dividing himself between doctoring and living?Between the roles of father and physician? Of husband and healer?His life had reached its terminus—the point when he couldn't ignore the darkness—and he instead allowed himself to be cradled within its grasp,to be surrounded by the dubious comfort of its tender embrace.Desperate for relief, for release, he traded the struggling light of the livingfor the dark stillness of the Stygian marsh,the welcome comfort of the Elysian Fields,the venerated halls of Valhalla to which a healer of heroes must surely have access.I can picture him there—here, in this portrait before me—and I find myself unable to look away.Each and every morning, may I return to see his face,to stop and see the faces of my fellow physicians;these men and women who protect our present and preserve our future.We must pause in our Sisyphean task of healing the sick around us,of surrendering ourselves to the pursuit of their wellness,of sacrificing our wholeness on the altar of their hopefulness,for Henry’s portrait is one among dozens and their struggles are legion.There must be a way for us to save them,a way for one of them to save me.