I ask a question.

The patient falls silent, and seems to be thinking. I say nothing, and quieten my mind.

The urge to ask again and redirect is strong.

I don’t.

The clock ticks.

The appointment is running late.

This will cascade through the rest of my day.

It’s okay. 1/

Sure enough they suddenly remember an important detail. It changes my line of questioning.

Not every silence ends in revelation. But this one did, and I would’ve easily missed it.

We call them the “patient.”

Patience is expected of them, in their suffering.

But us? 2/

When I was younger, a teenager, my family moved to upstate NY, to the town of Schenectady.

The name comes from the Mohawk word, “skahnéhtati,” meaning “beyond the pines.”

Our house was on the edge of a forest reserve.

My dreams extended beyond the pines, and into the wild. 3/

It was in this house that my love of writing would flourish in earnest.

It was in this house that I would graduate from high school and college, before finally moving away.

And it was in this house that I would learn one of the most important lessons of my life. 4/

The very first night we moved into our house, we stepped outside as a family to admire the view of the woods.

The door clicked shut behind us, and we didn’t realize it locked automatically.

We were locked out.

A locksmith was called in.

He arrived with all his tools. 5/

I watched him as he set up a little stool in front of the lock and sat down, taking a lockpicking tool and getting to work.

He must’ve noticed me watching, because he smiled, “Kid. If you want, I’ll teach you a lesson today. Just pay attention, don’t say a word.”

I nodded. 6/

His movements were slow, occasionally faster, jiggling the lockpick.

I wondered what the lesson was, and the urge to ask him was almost overwhelming.

But I held my tongue, like he’d asked.

The minutes stretched interminably.

Finally, a *click* and the door swung open. 7/

The locksmith smiled triumphantly, putting away his tools and closing his bag, standing up and folding then picking up his little stool.

Then he looked right at me.

“Here’s the lesson kid. Patience isn’t a virtue. It’s a learned skill.”

I let those words sink in. 8/

More than twenty years later, I’m still learning. Still honing my patience.

Being patient doesn’t mean losing all track of time.

Being patient means understanding the value of spending time wisely, and knowing that sometimes there’s great worth in simply being still. 9/

It’s noon in the hospital. I’m in the ICU where I like to write my notes for the day.

I review the lab results on a patient I’m seeing- auto-correcting hyponatremia.

The text comes from the hospitalist: “What do you want to do different?”

My answer: “Nothing.”

Patience. 10/

Later in the day, the hospitalist sits down with me, “I’m in a much better place than I was a few weeks ago.”

I nod, “I think we all are. The ones who made it.”

He looks at me, “You know, another COVID surge is coming right? We can’t see it, but it’s beyond the horizon.” 11/

I murmur to myself, “Beyond the pines.”

He quirks a brow.

I shake my head. “Nothing. All we can do is be patient.”

“Hopefully the survival rate keeps going up.” He’s talking about mortality.

But I remember.

You don’t have to die, to die...

I don’t tell him that.