The three of us took her to the airport this morning. It could have been any other car ride, on any given Sunday; just a trip to the outlets, breakfast after a long night or a mission to pick out furniture for one of our new apartments. We sang our favorite songs, loud and off-key, with the windows down and they seemed to mean more. The three of us walked her in, got a stranger to take a last picture, stood in the security line and cried when it was time for her to go. Then the three of us walked away, got back in the car and drove home.
Someone asks if we "are OK?!?" as we leave. I guess three girls dressed haphazardly in a mismatched combination of pajamas and duty gear shuffling through the terminal arm-in-arm and bawling at 6 AM raised some sort of flag. "We're OK. We just had to say goodbye to our best friend," says L. We are unusually quiet, aside from the crying.
All I can think of is an episode of Buffy. Willow is having a hard time forgiving herself and Giles asks her if she wants to be punished. She replies, "I wanna be Willow." He says, "You are. In the end, we all are who we are - no matter how much we may appear to have changed." The scene fades into an incredibly grown up Xander, getting out of a new car dressed in a suit and on his way to work. It seems surreal how much he has clearly grown up, from the goofy, awkward, naive high school kid he was when we met him.
I can't get the image out of my mind. I can't help but think of how much we have all changed, and wonder how the hell we got here, to today, to saying goodbye. How did we move from 4 years ago at our first ambulance meeting, before "EMS" stood for "Earn Money Sleeping", before college EMS was "for kids"? When did that happen? When did casual acquaintances and Thursday night shift partners become family? And how do you tell the first family you've ever had that it's OK to leave and move across the country, if that's where there heart is? How can the girl I remember being so nervous and scared to ride on the ambulance for the first time be confidently moving clear across the country to start all over, live on her own, and work more than competently as an ICU nurse? How can my first preceptor, a new cleared at the time herself, now be the President of an ambulance company, married almost a year and thinking of starting her own family? How can one of *my* first probies be the Captain of the company where we met, and less than a year from being an RN herself?
And as for me, how did I go from whacker-queen to competent EMT, registered nurse, and -arguably, most importantly- somebody's love, somebody's world and probably future wife? When I got out of the car at the airport today, where was that scared little girl who thought it was a good idea to traction splint an open tib-fib fracture (don't worry, it was a drill.)? Where was the girl who needed her the friend that's leaving today to pick her up off the floor on a daily basis, to make her good choices for her, to sit by her hospital bed on multiple occasions? Who is this chick standing in her place? How did the three of us leave her and walk tall back to the car today, in one piece? How did we walk at all?? How did we drive home, part ways and go to work, like it was any other day? Like we hadn't just lost a piece of ourselves?
EMS has given me many things. The first job I've enjoyed getting up and going to. A great resume. Awesome clinical experience. Proof positive direction for my career. Fun nights, both on duty and off. But most importantly, it turned my friends into my family. Some of my best and most important conversations, experiences and memories with those four happened on the clock, on calls or just driving around in trucks. The rest happened because those times happened first.
EMS also showed me what I was capable of, myself. That I could be something worth being proud of. That I can do things I never dreamed of, do them well, and even occasionally help others in the process. That I could stand on my own, even lead others, when before it didn't seem like I could stand at all. That I will continue to move on, to grow, to do what I have to do, no matter what happens around me. That I have to.
Today my friend moved on. I know what I have lost, and it's a lot. But I know I will be OK. When I got to work today, her ID from her bunker gear was clipped to my gear rack. I don't know how it got there, and I don't care. I think I'll leave it, to remind me. We will stay in touch. We will talk and visit. I think the worst part is realizing not that I can't do it without her, but that I can. I know we will see each other again. And in the meantime, it's time for me to go to work. Like I said before... in the end, we all are who we are - no matter how much we may appear to have changed. And yet...
We have been taught and we have learned to do what we have to do, no matter the cost, no matter how much it hurts. If there could be a snapshot of who we are today, it wouldn't be the picture of the four of us in the lobby at the airport. It would be the three of us walking away.
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