By Brittany Beasley
When I think about it, I lose my breath.
I feel like the weight of the world is crushing my chest into my spine.
My tears flow freely like a faucet on full force.
I try to find the words, but all that comes out is the silent screams of an ugly cry.
The breathless scream you feel in the depth of your soul.
The grip is so tight all I can do is lie in the floor while my tears dampen the carpet beneath my face.
My stomach turns into a hard knot with overwhelming disgust.
All I want to do is make everything better, but I am powerless.
It is strange in moments like this you realize how helpless you are and how delicate life is.
We never truly know the meaning of, “…the days are long, but the years are short…” until we are met with the finality of time.
Time waits for no one, slows for no one, and stops for no one.
Although at this moment, it feels as if time stands still, and the world stops turning. However, time is ticking…
Ticking on just as the world is still rotating while I lay here breathless in this sorrow.
How can it be that time is both infinite and finite?
What a quandary of the universe.
It seems as if we have all the time in the world until it all comes crashing down.
Then we wonder where time went.
As if time can come and go.
But time is constant, always there, always ticking, ticking away.
Everyone wishes they’d acted differently if they had known time was slipping away.
Time is fleeting.
In the end time spares no one.
Brittany Beasley, Ph.D., RN, CNE, is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate students. Her research focuses on telehealth in acute care and nursing education innovation. With over 20 years of experience in acute care, intensive care, geriatrics, telemedicine, research, and nursing education, Dr. Beasley is a Certified Nurse Educator. She mentors BSN honors students, coordinates acute care clinical experiences, and has designed and taught a graduate-level telehealth course. Actively engaged in faculty governance, she chairs various college and university committees, serves on the Academic Senate, and is the President of the Gamma Xi at-Large Chapter of Sigma Nursing.