You're a genuinely great human being. I'm not sure I could have emotionally handled that myself.
To be perfectly honest they were helping me as much as I was helping them.
My wife was pretty much unresponsive for 7 days. The doctors did not expect her to survive. When pressed, one doctor told me that she might have “a 25% chance on a good day”. The hospital chaplain said “Her fate is in God’s hands”. I had to plan for a funeral home, get her will ouy, and sign end of life directives.
I was sitting there, pretty much living in her room. Watching her vitals. Hoping for the best. Frankly expecting death to come every time I nodded off.
It was the most impotent I have ever felt in my 55 years on this planet.
I noticed that many patients were not getting visitors. I mean, who in their right mind wants to go into a Covid ward? I was already wearing PPE and a respirator full time, so I decided to volunteer.
Visiting with the patients gave me something to do. It let me help someone even as I was utterly incapable of doing anything for my wife. It gave me some sense of purpose when my family’s future was completely out of my hands.