This isn’t a sound I find comforting, but there is a woman I work with who used to work at a hospital and got used to the sound of sirens from an ambulance. With all the familiar sounds I hear, a washing machine, weedwhackers, and other “home” sounds, even the sound of movies, the one I never hear are sirens. We count ourselves lucky.
My coworker, however, worked at the hospital in her town for over 10 years. I asked her how she could possibly get used to a sound like that. I’d be on edge every time because it usually indicates an emergency. She said after some time you find comfort in it, though she was ashamed to admit it. She enjoyed her line of work. She liked helping people. And she had accepted that these types of emergencies happen and that she was proud to be on the frontline.
You see, to her, most people in their homes hear sirens and get alarmed because we can’t do anything to help. The unknown frightens us or makes us upset. For her, it was a reminder of why she did what she did. She worked to heal people. She comforted them. She calmed down families. She was active in responding to the sirens because to her, and many would agree, she was a heroin.
Why she ended up coming to work on a farm was exactly what I wondered, too. She said office politics got out of hand. And let’s be fair, she didn’t thrive in her career simply for the sirens. She liked to help people and that was her main prerogative. Still, she had to report to people above her and after a while, that got to be too much for her stress levels. Funny, I’d think that sirens were enough to stress me out, but not to her.
She decided she wanted something quieter and to help medically in other ways. Now she works with our livestock. She’s not a veterinarian, but she helps care for them – feeding, grooming, and companionship. And she’s great at it!
She does tell me on occasion she misses the actual work in a hospital, wearing comfortable scrubs, and especially being in a clean, sterile environment. However, for now she is content with the work she does because she knows she is still a healer and helping other living creatures thrive.
We’re not sure where we’d be without her, either! She’s a natural caregiver.
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