Run Silent Run Deep

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Raj Ramakrishnan, PhD

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Manager, Graduate Nursing Student Success Center, The Carol & Odis Peavy School of Nursing,

Adjunct Professor, Department of Biology, Division of Natural Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics, University of St. Thomas, Houston, TX, USA

 

 

The year 2016. Life is seemingly going well. I was managing a research lab.  In the evenings, I was teaching at two campuses. Our daughter was just three and a half years old. My wife was teaching full-time and was working on her third book. The semester was trudging along toward its end. At the beginning of April, the three of us got sick. While my daughter and I recovered, my wife continued to show symptoms. But as we do often, the busyness of life overrides our actions and the visit to the doctor kept getting postponed till too late.

 

When eventually that visit happened, the damage had been done and my wife was admitted to St. Luke’s Respiratory ICU. The CAT scan showed a ground glass presentation of one lung while the other lung was clear. Treatment began but she was not responsive and had to be sedated following intubation. Things went from bad to worse fast and she was moved on to ECMO for the last three days of her life. While this was happening, I was stretched beyond the limit taking care of our toddler and working the jobs. To me, skipping teaching was not an option as that would affect the students. So, with help from the daycare and neighbors, I soldiered on. As I was brought up in a culture where we were expected to just grit our teeth and see things to an end, it seemed just like another challenge of life I had to face.  

 

More than seven years have passed since that fateful May morning when we decided to stop the ECMO. My daughter’s grief is evolving. Mine has been locked up to be processed at some point in life. As I embarked on what will be the journey for the rest of my life as a single parent raising a daughter, I started reading about stoicism. Reflecting on the writings made me realize I have been subconsciously following stoic principles in life and at work.

 

While in moments of weakness, I do complain, Marcus Aurelius’ statement, “Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear” speaks to me about my situation. I was perhaps being prepared for this situation by all the challenges and difficulties I had encountered growing up. When I look around me on campus as faculty, staff, and students go about their daily endeavors, it embosses the fact that each of them may be bearing their own cross and that nature has provided them the strength to bear whatever life throws at them. If only they knew. When at times my spirit is weaker and my flesh is weak, Marcus Aurelius’ statement, “Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear” runs through my mind.

 

Reference

Marcus Aurelius (167 A.D.). In Meditations (Book V, passage 18). Dover Thrift Editions: Philosophy.