This morning, as I was pulling into the driveway of the hospital (one of the oldest in the city), something unexpected happened.
Until that point, the Uber ride had been completely silent.
As we neared the entrance, the driver finally spoke:
“Ma’am, do you work here?”
I nodded.
“Yes, I’m a doctor. This is my workplace.”
While talking, he was knowingly navigating the hospital paths.
“Ma’am, I know. The thing is… my father passed away 15 days ago. He was admitted here. That’s how I know the way.”
Something in me froze. A chill, almost.
I wasn’t expecting it, and I didn’t know what to say. My mind started racing, trying to find something comforting, something kind, something… appropriate.
But I stayed quiet.
He kept talking. And I just listened.
“He had shortness of breath for over a year. Things were getting worse. Two of his heart valves were failing. There was also a blockage. So, we decided to go ahead with the surgery.”
By now, we had stopped. But we both just sat there. He wasn’t really talking to me. He was just speaking into the air, like maybe he had held it all in and was letting it all out.
“For two months, I was here… running around this hospital. Day and night. I know this place inside out. I used to eat at that canteen. I was with him constantly, through it all.”
He continued,
“Sometimes I wonder… maybe we shouldn’t have done the surgery. Maybe we made the wrong decision.”
At that point, I wanted to say something,
Wishing I had a better idea, I said softly,
“You did what you felt was right in that moment. Don’t let guilt take away the love with which you made that decision.”
But even as I said it, I knew he didn’t care about the right thing to be said. There could be no “right thing” to be said to someone who had lost a parent.
He just needed to be heard.
A few minutes later, I stepped out of the car.
“Take care”, I said.
He smiled. And drove away.
…..
It started as just another Uber ride. But it left me sitting with so much more.
We always talk about the patient, because they are our only priority.
The care, the condition, the prognosis, the plan.
But the caregivers?
The ones who pace outside the ICU, who skip meals, who read consent forms with shaking hands, what about them?
We often tell them to “take care of him,” or “make sure they eat,” but we rarely ask how they’re holding up.
And after the patient is gone, they’re the ones left behind, with guilt, grief, exhaustion, and regret. And no space for it.
They survive the hospital. But barely.
Some spiral into hopelessness. Some into silence. Some into misplaced rage. And most people return to work as if nothing happened, as if they haven’t just lost a parent, a partner, or a child.
Because while life never stops, work offers distraction, and distraction is often easier than sitting at home, facing the unexpressed emotions…grief.
We assume they’ll be fine. We mistake their silence for strength. They linger in the shadows, carrying all the trauma. We don’t even know their names. We ignore the fact that they are grieving too, sometimes even more than the patient.
And all this… without a single support system in place.
No safe space to say, “I’m not okay.”
Because grief, especially the grief of a caregiver, is treated like an extra. A side story.
A detail we’re not trained to hold.
While dealing with grief, it’s important to show up as a human before a doctor, to lead with empathy before objectivity.
Not everything has a protocol or the perfect response.
Some moments just need to be heard and felt.
