Vijay Kamath 

ENGL 11000 

9/15/21 

The Lesson of Life 

“Vijay you need to get out of the house more.”, my dad scolded. 

“Why don’t you make more friends”, my mom asked. 

“Can you please speak up, I can’t hear you”, said most of my teachers. 

It appears for the majority of the time; I have been a background character in my own life. Lost in the shuffle because I really did not fit anywhere and most of the time enjoyed my own company more than being with other people. I feel that extracurriculars being a significant part of the college application process was a projectile for me to start putting myself out there and creating new experiences with others, if I really wanted to get into a good college. It is in these recent years that I realize, we create memories and build character with the help of important moments that invested ourselves in the future, enlighten us, or even shake us with fear down to our core. The experience I had while volunteering at a hospital was able to accomplish all three. 

It was an early afternoon in August 2019, sunny as it should be, and I could still smell the musky air from the heavy rain from last night. Around 1:00 I would hobble downstairs and catch the bus to reach the hospital at by 1:30. The heat radiating from one person to the next was making me dread the fact that I decided to give free labor for six hours that day. Trust me, that would be the least traumatic thing I dealt with that day. Once I stepped into the stroke unit that day, I knew those six hours would feel like an eternity. I just got out of the locker-room with my uniform on and the charge nurse, Nurse Carla, started motioning me to hurry and take over the front desk as the ward clerk, Gladys, was helping to take care of a situation with two other nurses. With confusion in my mind, I followed her orders even though I barely knew how to run the front desk at all. After about twenty minutes of me not knowing what was happening in the chaotic room 362, Gladys and the other two nurses came out sweat reddened and with emptiness in their eyes. Gladys came back to the front desk trying to make her face support a smile as she greeted me and started to call someone through the hospital phone. A quarter of an hour goes by, and I finally ask what happened as I see a family of about eight people ranging from an elderly man to a toddler stop by the front desk and then pace quickly to room 362. 

“Are they here for that patient?”, I quietly asked Gladys 

She whispered, “Do you see room 362 on the main monitor?”.

I nodded. 

With a heavy heart she said, “The patient in there only has a few hours left” 

She went on to tell me that the elderly patient suffered their second stroke in the past two weeks, and this one was nail in the coffin. They tried all measures to keep the patient stable, but it was no use as the patient was not responding and the nurses knew that it would be best if the patient was as comfortable as possible before the inevitable. 

For the next few hours, it was difficult for me to focus on anything knowing that there was a human being that would leave us all forever. Death is an unfortunate yet natural process that every living organism goes through, but being in the presence of such a process was an unnatural experience for me. The nurses then instructed me to go pick up medication from a different floor, and I had to pass room 362 to reach the staircase, but instead of walking in a uniform strut towards the staircase, I stopped in front of the room for a moment. The severity of this situation did not hit me until I saw all of them in there surrounded by the patient’s bed. It felt as if the entire world froze for a second as I witnessed the tragic scene. Each family member weeping, the monitor releasing an alarming beep every few seconds, and the patient lying there motionless with a fogged-up mask around her pale wrinkly face. I quickly rushed up the staircase and brought the medication back down to the stockroom with a million thoughts running through my mind. 

How am I going to react when my grandparents die? How am I going to react when my parents die? How will I spend my final seconds? I am not ready to die. These are some of the things that pop into my head as I panic at the fact that I do have an expiration date and it will most likely not be on my terms. I start to think about things I hope to do and look towards the future. A future career, relationships, opportunities, and experiences that I have always be eager to do since I was little. I do not want to live life based on “what if”s. I realized this is the only chance you will be able to get to do anything your mind desires before you are faded to black forever. As 7:30 rolled around and I was finally able to go home, that still did not change the fact that the patient would rest forever in a few hours.  

Before I left that day, I visited the room one more time and saw the patients’ monitor close to a flatline, I promised myself to never stall at my life. I do not want to be on my death bed looking back at all the time I wasted that I could have done something and making a memory with others. If someone is hesitant about starting a conversation, I will be the one to start it. Opportunities do not come often, and it is my duty to seize the day or it will be gone forever. Failure is something that I should not be afraid of, as it is the best teacher.  

With the sun starting to set, I start my journey home with a less crowded and cooler bus while listening to a mildly enjoyable playlist that I made, I realize that life is not as bad as I think it is. Things could get worse and if they are, that I should enjoy each moment before they are gone. The lights at night were a little brighter than I remember when I walked up to my apartment building and entered my home. You start to appreciate the trivial things as you know they may not last forever. Death gives life meaning as it gives us the motivation to live, and I will always be grateful for learning that lesson at an early age.