(1/3) Today was the first time I cried during the pandemic. I had taken care of my sweet patient all week so I had gotten to know him. When I saw him this morning, I knew he was dying. I was trying to unkink his morphine drip and I said out loud “I just don’t want him to suffer”

(2/3) and suddenly I just couldn’t hold back the tears. Later when I pronounced him dead, I cried over his body because there was nobody else to do so. His wife died 2 weeks ago also from the coronavirus so his goal had been to be discharged so he could plan her funeral.

(3/3) I called his family to FaceTime him before he died but the family didn’t want to because it had been so difficult for them to see the patient’s wife before she died.

(4/3) Later in the day, when activity on the unit had slowed, I sat in the nurse’s station with his nurse, the charge nurse, and other nurses who had taken care of him, and we talked about him, and the pandemic, and we were together.