Nancy Chedid
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

We all heard the alarm. Strident and jarring. As medical interns in our eighth month of training—our nerves primed, our blood already rising—we steeled ourselves for the announcement that must follow. Was it a cardiac arrest? An ambulance, rushing accident victims to the emergency room? A fire?

No. The voice of the hospital president on the PA system was startlingly calm and deliberate: “Procession of Honor,” he said. “Ten o’clock. Floor Six.”

To see whether we—busy interns—were required to attend, we checked in with our supervising resident. “You should go,” he answered blandly. “Everyone, unless they are dealing with a true emergency, should witness the procession.”

We made our way to the sixth floor and found a spot near the entrance to the intensive care unit. The corridor was nearly full: glancing around, I recognized the senior “attending” physician on our service, the staff who kept the operating rooms spotless, the nurse from the outpatient clinic who had rescued me from rookie missteps, and the fellow who had served me coffee in the cafeteria that morning. Here was the little society of our hospital—no longer an abstraction, but a palpable community—standing side-by-side in this hallway in utter silence.

Several minutes passed, and then the doors to the ICU slid open. For the first time, we beheld the hero—the one who would be venerated by the Procession of Honor. There was nothing extraordinary in the appearance of this middle-aged man of average height and weight. Yet, he was extraordinary.

Unconscious, he lay on a stretcher. There was a tube bringing oxygen to his lungs, and another bringing fluid to his veins. A thin blanket covered his body up to his chin. His head rested on a pillow, white and immaculate. And then there was the halo (as we all agreed, later on, he must have possessed).

Three family members, two men and a woman, stood at the head of the stretcher. The woman, with countenance both mournful and radiant, leaned down to kiss his forehead and whisper a last goodbye. Finally she permitted her tears to cascade down her cheeks as the stretcher, escorted by a doctor and a nurse, glided gently out the door.

A profound stillness had settled over the corridor—over the entire hospital, it seemed—perhaps over all creation. As we later confirmed, my colleagues and I shared deep and mixed emotions in that moment—grief, joy, and especially awe. I cannot say how long we stood there with heads bowed and eyes downcast, how long was the hero’s journey from the intensive care unit to the operating room, from life, to death, to life again.

He passed through the doors of the OR; they swung closed behind him. And we, the witnesses, began to find our voices again. There were murmured fragments, pages from a book of life: this man—who had suffered a stroke resulting in irreparable damage to his brain, who could never have awakened again; whose family, with great courage and greater love, had carried out the wishes of their father, husband, and brother—this man who, years earlier, in case such a catastrophe should occur, had registered to be an organ donor.

And now the corneas from his eyes would give sight to others. His kidneys would give health to others. His liver and his heart would give life to others.  

Following the Procession of Honor, my fellow interns and I retired to the mortal world, which is to say, the doctor’s lounge. A moment later we were joined by the senior attending physician—someone we had grown to respect not just for her skills as a doctor, but for the graceful equanimity she always maintained with her patients.

Abruptly, she collapsed into a chair and broke down, sobbing inconsolably. We asked if we could be of help; she kindly waved us away.

“You need to see this,” she told us, “all of it. The tragedy and the beauty in the journey of an organ donor. And your teacher breaking down and crying. We all know how important it is to keep a cool head during a crisis. But a warm heart is even more important than a cool head. To be a good doctor, you must feel. Don’t ever forget that.”

I never will.