At some point in our lives, we will all need nurses. Male or female, from many other countries, speaking different languages. Well-trained and life-saving ICU nurses like Alex Pretti or the night nurse who saved my life. When I was in Swedish hospital with viral pneumonia, my nurses were like a United Nations of healers. It was during the pandemic and nurses tended to me in protective gear like hazmat suits. No visitors in my room, no respite from the frighteningly high fever.
One midnight, my Haitian night nurse, Maureen, laid a cooling hand on my forehead as I succumbed to a dreaded and dangerous fever of 105 degrees.
“I don’t know if I’ll survive,” I whispered.
Maureen’s lovely face floated like a dark moon as she repeated the tender mantra, “Just this one night. That’s all you must get through. Just this one night. I’m here with you.”
Then she began singing a lullaby. As a lifelong singer, I couldn’t help but hum, harmonizing. My lungs filled with air, my ribs relaxed, and by dawn, the fever finally subsided. I felt like I’d been left out in a sweet rain.
“You’re still here,” Maureen smiled and pulled my drenched sheets off the hospital bed. She dressed me in a clean gown with all the politeness and modesty of a sister nun.
When ICU nurse Alex Pretti was gunned down by ICE in Minneapolis, the first person I thought of was Maureen. What if she were coming off night shift and because she is black, targeted by ICE? What if she never made it home for one more night with her family? As we mourn the murder of Alex Pretti, as we witness the brutality of masked ICE militia with a nanosecond of training compared to nurses, who are our true protectors?
A nurse who worked with veterans, like Alex Pretti, was gunned down in the war zone that ICE has made of Minneapolis. Pretti was more an American veteran and hero than masked, lawless ICE thugs who parade around with heavy-duty weapons like cosplaying soldiers.
Pretti’s last words as he helped a woman attacked by ICE and lying on the frigid ground were “Are you okay?”
We are not okay with these murders or the knee-jerk official reactions of “assassin” and “domestic terrorist” that Trump, Stephen Miller, and Kristi Noem brandished as their favorite word weapons. The whole country watched and witnessed these heartbreaking videos. These chilling images break through politics and polarities. We recognize the official lies. No wonder we are in the streets resisting and demanding that ICE be reined in and disciplined by the same sensible rules that govern our military and police: identification badges, tighter warrant restrictions, uniform code of conduct, and mandatory body cameras with no masks.
We owe such a deep debt to nurses. Trump survived COVID-19 with the help of nurses at Walter Reed Medical Center. He showed his gratitude by reclassifying and removing nursing programs from the professional degree category. This limits graduate student loans access to 25K per year. Among my friends and students there are several nurses. My acupuncturist is also an R.N. I have upmost respect and gratitude for all their medical skills.
Nurses tend to us when we are the most fragile, the most frightened. I hope that whenever Trump, Miller and Noem need a nurse, they are haunted by their prejudices and cruelty when black, brown, and Asian nurses care for them. I hope they are tended by a nurse as competent and caring as Alex Pretti or my compassionate Maureen.
When we resist and protest DHS and ICE, nurses will still be tending to us. Alex Pretti will not. One of my favorite gospel hymns is “Abide with Me.” Nurses abide with us. We can take today to abide with Pretti’s memory and show our gratitude to all those nurses who will patiently and tenderly abide with us when it is our time.
“Fast falls the evening tide, the help of the helpless, abide with me.”
