Of Thestrals, and Those Who Have Seen Death

Of the many mystical creatures JK Rowling created throughout the Harry Potter series, it is the Thestral- a skeletal winged horse-like creature which impressed me the most. In The Order of the Phoenix Thestrals carried Harry and his friends on their backs from Hogwarts to The Ministry of Magic in London. They possessed many magical qualities, but for me, the most profound was their complete invisibility to most people.

Invisibility to most people....but for anyone who had personally witnessed death and accepted its reality, Thestrals could be seen quite clearly. Here, Rowling made a vital distinction. To have the ability to actually see a Thestral, in all its terrifying beauty,  her characters needed to not only be present during the death of another, but internalize and process death's reality as a natural process of life.

Harry could see Thestrals, as could Luna Lovegood.  Both had experienced death up close and accepted its reality.

Over 25 years in emergency medicine, I have watched many, many people take their final breaths.  Most were elderly, but occasionally there were younger people, children and babies. Whether or not I have seen too many pass away is not for me to judge. Sometimes I wonder what other line of work exposes one to so much death;  I can’t think of one. Beyond the ER, I was also in the room for my ex-wife’s grandmother when her soul departed.

I have witnessed the end of life, in all its forms, over and over again. If Thestrals existed, surely I could see them.

Yesterday, I wheeled a ninety-year old auto collision victim with minor injuries into the adjacent room so he could sit with his 88 year-old wife of 60 years as she passed away.  Her injuries from their auto collision were massive, and her frail body simply could not overcome them. The rescue squad had rolled them both into the ER simultaneously, and our team was able to keep her alive for over two hours; I secured her airway and inserted a chest tube into her collapsed right lung as the nurses frantically squeezed blood through her two large-bore IVs. We intensely worked on her, losing her pulse a dozen times. Each time we initiated another lifesaving treatment, she responded with a transient return of blood pressure. She never did, however, regain conciouness. 

She was in her final throes. Next door, her husband, in pain from his broken ribs, was on his cellphone with their children. I joined their conference call, conveying the situation as the three listened. Massive trauma...remains comatose....losing blood pressure...the people on the other end of the connection were likely my age, even older; they seemed to understand. After discussing matters with their dad, he gave me the order to terminate resuscitative efforts on his wife, and I moved him to her bedside. Within minutes after he took her hand, she died, while the children remained present on speaker phone.

How much death is one supposed to preside over in one's life? Is there a maximum on this? If there is, I'm sure I passed it years ago. Yesterday's end-of-life experience was one of the "better" ones; I had seen many over the course of my career which were far worse.

*****

My shift was over; she had been my final patient of the day. It was now 7pm, the afternoon summer storms were dissipating, and the sun was at my back, low in the sky as I drove home. I headed east away from the hospital, towards the Blue Ridge. Suddenly, directly in the center of my field of vision, arching down in the distance from the dissipating clouds, appeared a rainbow, vivid and in all its glory. 

I had brought her husband, smashed ribs and all, to her bedside so the two could properly say goodbye to each other, and she was reciprocating in kind with a glorious heavenly thank-you. I smiled, and my imagination took off. Within the rainbow’s band of colors, effortlessly gliding about, my mind’s eye conjured the form of a dark, winged horse.