Our People, Their Stories: Jennifer Brady

Mary Oliver once wrote, "Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry," and I desperately feel this is true. In the middle of the numbing, deathly cycle of the COVID-19 pandemic, I needed that life-cherishing force and so did people in the middle of the healthcare COVID storm with me.?

I have always been a lover of words. As a child, I spent entire summers reading and racking up a massive library fine. Books enthralled me with their invitation to visit other worlds, and dive deep into different lives. They engaged new emotions and presented larger questions that I had never brushed up against in my small-town lifetime. All those summers filled with a tree overhead and my nose in printed pages broke open things in me and expanded my heart space and how I thought about my life.??

My own writing began as a way to understand myself in high school. My mind seemed very loud, and confining it to paper with pencil and ink helped turn down the volume in my own head and help me really hear me.?

Poetry was always something I loved but falling in love with Mary Oliver’s poetry was another revelation. I had read collections of poems from a variety of artists before, but in high school I checked out one of her collections and, for the first time, felt known in a way I had not experienced before. Her connection to the natural world was one I deeply related to, and her ability to weave in so many personal wonderings and discoveries was so beautiful to me. For the first time, I wanted to feel my own life through writing poetry.?

Poetry for me has become like photography. I want to capture a moment; how it felt in my mind, bones, heart, skin and spirit. I think everyone has had that experience when, for a few breaths, time stops because of beauty or pain, and for me, trying to move that moment into a poem was something I am often inspired to do.?

There were a few years when my children were young that I lost my words and barely wrote. Through some lovely, serendipitous moments I was invited to join an amazing group of women who gathered to write. In that safe circle, I first experienced the vulnerability and significance of sharing my words. I also learned how to receive them from others, how to listen. To speak something unedited, with the ink still wet and have other women say, "Yes. I understand," was a feeling of connection through writing that continued to encourage me to share. It felt like standing in an endless circle that kept giving.?

Experiencing the pandemic felt like endless dying to me. Literally, people died in front of me nearly every shift, and it felt like I had to go numb to survive all the fear and uncertainty that was hovering over my family at home and devastating my friends and team at work. I know we all felt absolutely broken by it in a thousand ways. All of my words dissolved. It wasn't until late 2020 that I started writing again. It began with a letter I wrote to my fellow Respiratory Therapists, as I felt like I wanted to acknowledge our experience as a group. Putting this experience into words helped me feel hope again, by focusing on how incredible our team was, what we had done and all we were doing to save lives and support all the patients and staff in the hospital. From that point on I was able to slowly capture my experiences and feelings through poetry again.

I remember being in the ICU, waiting for more people to come help prone a patient with COVID who was really struggling. I was talking with another team member, trying not to cry (because the sensation of a runny nose while wearing a N95 and face shield is something to avoid) as she told me how she sent what I wrote to all her family and friends because it expressed what she had been struggling to find words for. That meant a great deal to me.?

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We all need to know that we are not alone. When we feel understood, there is a weight lifted and a release from the cage of our own experiences that I think is necessary. Even if no one surrounding you in your life can relate, there is a piece of writing, of poetry, out there that will help you feel understood. It opens windows in the spirit and heart and lets in the breeze.

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Jennifer Brady, a Registered Respiratory Therapist at UnityPoint Health - Meriter, shares her experience processing the COVID-19 pandemic and helping her coworkers find peace through writing and sharing her poetry in Our People, Their Stories.?

Read other team member stories at?Our People, Their Stories.?