The Quiet That Lives Between the Lines
April 20th, Five Years Later
There are dates the calendar never lets you forget.
You can circle them, avoid them, pretend they’re just another page to turn—but your heart knows better. It remembers. It flinches before your brain even registers the reason why. For me, one of those days is April 20th.
Five years ago today, I wasn’t in the room.
COVID had locked the hospital down. All I had was a glitching laptop screen and a Zoom link that felt more like a lifeline than a window. I watched from 80 miles away as my sister lay still in an ICU bed—her body failing, her breath shallow, her spirit already half gone. The machines kept rhythm in the background, beeping like a countdown I couldn’t stop.
Jennifer was in cardiogenic shock. Her heart had finally surrendered after years of fighting. Endocarditis—brought on by a long battle with addiction—had ravaged her system. And in the end, only my mother and my niece—Jennifer’s middle daughter—were allowed to be by her side.
I was in my truck, Northbound on I-87 on the way to Vermont to be with the rest of our family, when the call came.
They said there was nothing more they could do. No more interventions. No more hope.
And they turned to me.
Not my mother. Not her daughters. Me.
I was her healthcare proxy—her advocate. Her voice when she no longer had one. And so, on a frozen screen, through a weak Wi-Fi connection and tears I couldn’t wipe away, I gave the answer.
Yes.
Yes to unplugging the machines. Yes to letting the beeping fade. Yes to goodbye.
I didn’t get to hold her hand. I didn’t get to whisper one last story or promise. I made the call while the world passed by my car window in a blur of gray sky and broken heartbeats.
And I’ve lived every day since trying to carry the weight of that decision.
Trying to understand it. To forgive it. To believe it was the right one.
There’s no guide for that kind of moment. No training. No moral roadmap. Just you, a screen, and a silence that’s never really left.
Sometimes I wonder what my mom really thinks about the choice I made. I wonder what my nieces carry in their hearts—if they see me as the one who helped her find peace, or the one who ended it all. And I wonder how many times Jennifer tried to claw her way back to us before that day, only to be met with walls we didn’t know we were building.
Her death isn’t detailed in my memoir. Not explicitly. But she’s in every page.
Because I didn’t just lose my sister. I carried her with me—into every shift at GAVAC, into every night with Lake Valley EMS, into every patient whose hand I held when no one else could. I carried her into the sleepless nights, the unanswered prayers, and the trauma that changed the way I hear sirens.
The Fire That Followed
Two years after she died, I became a full-time EMT. Not to save the world. But to understand it. To try to find some kind of meaning in a life that felt suddenly out of balance.
Eventually, transitioning from GAVAC to Lake Valley EMS. Each shift since has felt like walking a tightrope between purpose and penance. A search for peace in the same chaos that took her from us.
Because the truth is, that day didn’t just take my sister.
It changed me.
It taught me how quickly things fall apart. How even the strongest people can vanish beneath addiction, pain, and silence. How grief isn’t something you ride out like a wave—it’s a tide that pulls you under when you least expect it.
Some days I’m okay. Most days, I’m functioning.
But on days like today—April 20th—I feel every crack in the armor.
Crowds & Quiet
I used to thrive in noise. Sirens. Radios. Loud calls and louder chaos—it was a kind of music I understood. But now, crowds make my hands shake. Restaurants feel too loud. I scan for exits when I walk into a room.
Not because I think something will happen—but because I’ve seen what happens when it does.
Trauma doesn’t fade. It just gets quieter. Like a song stuck in your bones.
And when the calls are done, when the uniform comes off, and the house is quiet—that’s when it’s the loudest.
The Quiet After the Sirens is about that silence. For what lives after the calls. For the weight EMTs and medics and firefighters and nurses carry into their homes, their beds, their relationships.
It’s not about heroics. It’s about what happens when the sirens stop and the quiet rushes in.
The Burden of Proxy
I don’t talk much about what it meant to be my sister’s healthcare proxy. Not in the memoir. Not even in life. It was just my responsibility as her big brother.
There’s a sacred kind of sorrow in making that call. A hush that lives in the space between grief and mercy.
Some nights, I still lie awake and ask the ceiling if I did the right thing. If I acted too soon. If I took something away from the people who loved her most.
I know I was the only one in a place to make the decision. The rest of my family was drowning in grief, in their own traumas, in heartbreak too heavy to name.
It wasn’t fair. But trauma doesn’t care about fairness.
Only consequence.
Today, I’ll light a candle. I’ll pull out old pictures. I’ll tell my daughter a story about the aunt she barely knew. And I’ll sit with the ache.
Not drown it in distraction or whiskey. Not pretend it’s not there.
I’ll honor it.
Because healing doesn’t mean forgetting. It means remembering without reliving. Holding space for both the love and the loss. For the grief and the grace.
The Quiet After the Sirens doesn’t contain every story.
But it was born from all of them.
From April 20th. From that hospital screen. From the nights when silence screams the loudest.
This is one of those stories—the ones that don’t make it into the book, but live between the lines.
A Quick Update
I know it’s National Poetry Month, and I’ve been quieter than usual.
Between podcast planning, my upcoming commencement, and visiting colleges with my daughter, life has been full.
But I’ll be back soon—with new poems, new reflections, and more of the truth that ties it all together.
Until then—be gentle with yourself. Call your people. Light a candle for what you’ve lost. And if you’ve ever had to make the kind of decision I did…
Just know this:
You are not alone.