2.00 p.m.:        He is at the reception desk collecting the patient files for the afternoon. He overhears one of his patients talking in the waiting room. Ruby is three years old. He was present at her birth. An older woman is asking her why she has come to the doctor today. Ruby replies, “I’ve come to see Hilton because he loves me!” He smiles as he hears this. Because he loves me! Not, because I’m sick. Or, because he’ll make me better. But, because he loves me! Such wise words from a young soul. I’m so happy she knows that I care about her.

. . .

12.15 p.m.:      He is back at the medical centre. He opens the death certificate pad. He approaches the completion of a death certificate with reverence. It is his final task in the care of a patient. No matter where a life journeys, what it’s seen or experienced, this is the final punctuation mark on a person’s medical narrative.

Excerpts from “Fallen Hero,” by Hilton Koppe, Published in Please See Me

I wake early and decide to take Charlie on a longish walk to the meadow. I am so glad I did. We cross the trestle bridge and there a low clouds and just right light for the Queen Anne’s Lace to be featured brilliantly. It’s everywhere, dominating the acres with lace. It starts to sprinkle. I get a text from my daughter, wondering if I am going to the dock. I had thought not. But she says I should walk there with Charlie for a swim and she’ll meet me. The rain stops. I run with Charlie to the dock. It’s so hot, we swim around the island together. I swim close to her, and watch her breast stroke from under water gliding, legs, arms, beside me. There is my grandchild too. Then we are done, and Charlie wants a ride home! So, I walk/run by myself through the itchy woods. I am hoping my poem draft will be well received in my Thursday morning workshop. Because I need it for tomorrow night’s event! We have, as usual, a rich workshop, wonderful poems and conversation, and my poem IS well received, and I’m relieved. I have some helpful feedback, and time to make some tweaks. In some ways, the poem will have a specific audience tomorrow night on Farm Pond–what it’s about. And then, I may revise it slightly differently for a wider audience, an audience who isn’t sitting in view of the pond. One of the writers on my monthly critique group, Hilton, has had his essay published in a literary journal, Please See Me, about physician burnout and learning compassionate self-care. It’s a very poignant, well-crafted piece. Doctors are heroes, and they are also human. Today is all literary in such a lovely way. I produce the bi-monthly IWWG open mic in the afternoon, writers from all around the country and the world, and featuring Lynne Barrett and Eileen Cleary. Then, tonight, I go to Martha’s Vineyard. Sort of, not really, but I can imagine myself in the Chilmark Community Center listening to author Sarah Broom discuss her fabulous memoir, and be interviewed by Thelma Golden as part of the Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival––where I would be in person tonight, if I were in Chilmark, as I usually am this time of year. I am loving her book, The Yellow House, and she is brilliant “in person.” What an amazing day and night I have had.