Take Me To Church

The 2nd annual UBC Medicine Art As Adjuvant Writing Competition concluded this year with the reading of the winning pieces at the Coffee House on April 8.  Dr. Monica Kidd, a Calgary-based published author and doc, and Kristy Williams, UBC Med grad 2014 and co-founder of Arts As Adjuvant, took on the difficult task of selecting the winners from a pool of beautiful written pieces.  Prizes were possible due to the continuing support of the BC Medical Journal and funding from the UBC Med Wellness Initiative Network.  Arts in Medicine would like to recognize Pretty Verma for organizing such a wonderful contest.

The following piece tied in third place:

Coda

by Janet Xu

The first time I listened to Gustav Holst’s Jupiter, I was with grandpa. Ever the music enthusiast,

he took me to a concert for my 10th birthday. I sat there, a little lost and more than a little overwhelmed

by how big the room felt and how sophisticated everyone seemed. Jupiter opened with a rapid arpeggio

of strings heralding an exuberant brass melody, and together forming a crescendo of excitement. It

unapologetically seized my attention andmy unease faded. I was enthralled. The dynamic shifts in themes,

the transitions in melody from one instrument to another, and the juxtaposition of the majestic fanfare

to a hymn-like tune left me scarcely a moment to exhale in between. I must have been enraptured, losing

all sense of time; for when the ending came, it seemed too sudden and too soon. The reverberations of

the final chord faded. In the ensuing moment of stunned silence, I digested that Jupiter has indeed ended.

Then, the applause broke out. Coda, as my grandpa later taught me, brings a piece to an end. In Jupiter,

it was the triumphant brass leading to a single resolute chord across all instruments.

Ever since I can remember, grandpa looked old. Perhaps it comes naturally with being a

grandparent. To the young me, he looked impossibly wrinkly and was a standard by which I defined old.

Despite his appearance, he had boundless energy. He coaxed a skeptical me into sitting on a bike and

lifting my feet off the ground as he held the handlebars. Under his encouragement, I cautiously pedaled

forward as he held the seat. Unwittingly, I began to pedal down a gentle hill. Suddenly, I realized that

“Erin! You’re riding! Keep going, you’re doing it!” That moment of disbelief and joy got the better

of me and I landed in a heap. My knees stung but I hardly noticed.

“Grandpa, did you see? I actually rode a bike!” I saw my grandpa running down the hill, waving

“Yeah, you were great!” He picked me up and swung me through the air. “Should we try that

again?” That time, I didn’t need any coaxing at all.

Later, Grandpa took me on trips with his scooter. He showed me pictures of local birds and we

raced to find them. We would stand there together, a slightly stooped man and a spindly girl two

generations apart, with identical goofy smiles as we tried to chirp one of the jays into responding.

In summers, Grandpa and I frequented the beach. We spent many an evening sitting in the sand,

enjoying our ice cream cones and watching the rose-tinged sky. In my eyes, Grandpa was a larger-than-
life hero who was always up for an adventure and had endless life stories.

In late elementary, I moved to a different city with my parents, starting a new phase in life. Years

passed and I grew, but Grandpa did not look any older. Whether it’s attributed to his already aged looks

or his unrelenting youthful energy, I do not know. Sufficient to say in every reunion, I would picture him

to look exactly as he did before we parted ways and he would always live up to my unsaid expectations.

One year turned to two and soon the years blurred together. I grew independent and spent time with

peers my age. After college, I moved to a city full of skyscrapers and smartly dressed people. Regular visits

with Grandpa grew sparser as I dived into my own life and learned to explore without hand-holding.

Grandpa continued to look spry, appearing at the major events in my life and celebrating with us in good

vigor. He had developed some timeless quality in my eyes. It felt like he would be there forever; laughing,

joking, and somehow always turning up at the right time.

On a nondescript day, I received a call that Grandpa had a heart attack. I felt the floor drop from

beneath my feet. How is it possible, my grandpa who has been that energetic constant in my life? I rushed

to find him in a hospital bed. Suddenly, he had aged before my eyes. When did his skin take on that wan

tone? He looked so small and frail among the sheets that I could not reconcile this present Grandpa with

the one in my beloved memories. I felt my heart catch and pressure building behind my eyes. Grandpa

continued to lay motionlessly amidst the tubes while a monitor recorded vitals in blinking numbers and

lines. “Life support”, I was told, but the words could not penetrate my brain. Grandpa who was so full of

I lost sense of time in that room where the sun does not seem to penetrate. The artificial lighting

gave the machinery a cold garish affect. As Grandpa’s outlook grew dimmer, hushed discussions started

in the corners until they permeated the room. We had to make a decision that no one should have to

make. Then everything stopped. Grandpa was free of the tubes.

My mind went to those years in a blur. When had I stopped looking for birds? When was the last

time I had ice cream on a beach? Was I living my life like an express train focused on getting to a

destination, but barely catching snippets of what went on around me? I wondered how many missed

opportunities there were. I could have been there for Grandpa as he had been for me all those years. The

suffocating pain and guilt were overwhelming.

“Coda…” his voice whispered in my head. The finality was unmistakable, but there was no closure.

In the moments of silence, I realized I could not catch up to reality so quickly. So many things unsaid and

so many things I wanted to do together. It was as if there were supposed to be more movements to the

suite. A void sits where my expectations were.

The 2nd annual UBC Medicine Art As Adjuvant Writing Competition concluded this year with the reading of the winning pieces at the Coffee House on April 8.  Dr. Monica Kidd, a Calgary-based published author and doc, and Kristy Williams, UBC Med grad 2014 and co-founder of Arts As Adjuvant, took on the difficult task of selecting the winners from a pool of beautiful written pieces.  Prizes were possible due to the continuing support of the BC Medical Journal and funding from the UBC Med Wellness Initiative Network.  Arts in Medicine would like to recognize Pretty Verma for organizing such a wonderful contest.

The following piece was awarded the second prize:

Closure

by Ben Huang

Medical School

is where i learned that

The Key To Self-Care As A Professional Physician Is In Practicing The Art Of Self-Reflection.

well i’m tired but i can’t sleep,

tired of staring wide-eyed at a white box with black scribbles that just appear;

thoughts

all

over

the

place.

write it out they say,

express it then send it away

i see i’m free when i bleed

i can just be

but

tonight

i can’t write

my eyes

only see brokenness

like the way i breaks up the smile in this simile

all similarly simmering down to semantic symmetry

all amounting to a mountain of imagery

but in reality

we reel in to find that we caught nothing.

i find myself saying a whole lot of nothing.

i should have said something.

it feels like bluffing

my way through a fluffed up, puffed up life

but

how can you heal someone when you are part of the disease

she knew

she must have known that

deep down

we are all children

reaching up with dirty fingers

trying to grasp the cookie jar

we are all young

blissful and blind to the curves ahead

just along for the ride

all we want is more ice cream

and to not have to go home

where Our Father is.

her name was Suicide.

actually, her name was j

and she was lovely.

there is a weighty silence

depressing me, pressing keys into WordPress

i can’t press my finger on it but

i’m pretty sure something’s wrong

pretty sure i feel a strong

ulcer chewing on my stomach lining

redefining the intertwining

tastes of bitter and sweet into a mellow mash of melancholy.

her name was j,

warm scarves, flowers of France, the passion of Paris packed into a small frame

a faint candlestick

waxing, waning

burning, dripping

puddles

pooling and cooling

to create

beautiful things.

like her special ketchup tortellini.

golden hair, gleaming eyes

beaming smile, dreaming soul

she had dreams;

inescapable little things,

part of the tapestry of life

and the art of living,

dreams;

hopeful little things

that stay with you and stoke the fire,

dreams;

givers of joy

and markers of failure

that begin when you sleep

and stir your great awakening

to the winding road of grinding effort

and triumphant calls into the void

she must have had dreams

of greener pastures

and softer meadows

lightly shaded with even softer yellows,

dreams;

for glory, and flight

fearless unto cloudless skies and starry night

soaring, exploring

storing memories in a mind as fragile as sandcastles

under the sweet summer sun

for it is the nature of man to imagine,

to freely reach far beyond the stars.

see,

i see you

in the CICU

admitted for a broken heart

a piece of art splattered and splayed

across the surgeon’s table

it seems

she could have used some Aspirin

aspiring to be desirable

but too late,

he prescribed the wrong treatment

and i mistreated her.

the mind is divine mystery

our neurology, theology

where all the gray and white matter

i can’t figure me out

i can’t release me out

of this prison cell

floating in mental cytoplasm

with no localization signals

to signal for local pain relief.

i could use some Aspirin

aspiring to be desirable

but i prescribe the wrong treatment

and i’ve retreated into numbness.

n-u-m-b

in a to-be-M-D

i’d rather spell these letters

than read their meaning on my degree

i’d rather they stay enveloped in play-rhyme

sealed behind me, ticking like that clock on the wall

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, I –

don’t know how anymore.

she must have had dreams;

beautiful little things

part of the tapestry of life

but Suicide stains the softly sewn fabric,

spilling over and staining the soul scarlet

Suicide leaves behind a husband, a daughter, a son.

and questions.

questions cling to me

the way her clothes would find her curves;

invisible and haunting,

ghosts

remind me of the distance

between hers and mine.

the fingers of guilt choke out all expression from me

i can’t put it into words;

they stole them.

i could have said something.

she lingers in memories

like a post-credit scene

on replay

but the film is set in stone

and the ending has been spoiled.

sometimes closure is unavailable,

like the friend i seemed to be.

i can’t shake this off

the stains of scarlet on my sleeves

i can’t take this off

this over-worn coat of nostalgia

and old dust.

Medical School

is where i learned that

some lives just don’t end cleanly;

they just