The Eternal Heart

I thought I knew death. I knew its stark finality. I’d seen it up close. A nurse is supposed to get used to death, accept it as a fact of life. But witnessing death come to someone who meant the world to me made me question everything. Was death simply a full stop? Was there nothing more?

- Linda Schadewald

In college, at Dickinson State University in Dickinson, North Dakota, I’d started out as an art major. One day on campus a guy raced past me. He tripped and fell. I knelt down to help and the thought came to me, so unexpected and so strange that I knew it was heaven-sent: I should be a nurse.

I added nursing as a second major. After graduation I was hired to work on the surgical floor at St. Alexius Hospital in Bismarck. Every day I saw what a difference medical professionals could make in people’s lives. My mother suffered from circulation problems and I persuaded her to travel a hundred miles from her home to “my” hospital for surgery. She checked in just before Palm Sunday, had the operation and seemed to be recovering nicely.

I had her on my floor. In the four months that I’d been a nurse, this felt like the reward for all my hard work and schooling. To be able to help my mother, who had given so much to me.

Wednesday of Holy Week I went to the mall to buy a few things for Easter. The family would all be coming to Bismarck to be close to Mom. Just as I was finishing up, I was paged with an alert to return to the hospital.

It was my worst fear come true. Mom was in cardiac arrest. She was “coding,” which means she was very near death. In the ICU they did all they could to resuscitate her. To no avail. Mom died right there on a gurney, surrounded by doctors, nurses and machines. Fifty-six years old. In the prime of her life.