The Measure

by Nikki Erlick

“Gone to live my life,” “Spending more time with family,” or “Off to make some memories.”

choosing willful ignorance in the hope of attaining its promised bliss,

“They’re a reminder that sometimes we screw up, and sometimes the system screws with us, but if you live your life with enough passion and boldness, then that’s what you’ll be remembered for. Not the crap that happened along the way.”

Did a patient receive less care because her string was short, or was a patient’s string short because she received less care?

There I was, thinking that I had brought hundreds of people back from the edge of death. That I had confronted death and won. And then I found out that maybe I hadn’t. Maybe I had only saved the ones who weren’t going to die anyway, the ones who still had more time on their strings. And, as for the other ones who I tried to save and failed, maybe they couldn’t have been saved. No doctor could have helped them.”

“You know, I watched a lot of people come to the end, and everyone around them kept begging them to fight. It takes real strength to keep on fighting, and yes, usually that’s the right answer. Keep fighting, keep holding on, no matter what. But sometimes I think we forget that it also takes strength to be able to let go.”

“We segment ourselves based on race or class or religion or whatever fucking distinctions we decide to make up, and then we insist on treating each other differently. We never should have allowed them to start labeling people as ‘long-stringers’ and ‘short-stringers.’ We made it too easy for them.”

sì. Their priorities. But, in Italy, I think we already knew. We already put the art first, the food first, the passion first,” she explained, a sweep of her arm encompassing the entire shop. “And we already put the family first. We did not need the strings to tell us what is most important.”

invent it ourselves.”

The first day of school. The dance recitals. The basketball games. Sledding in the backyard. Trick-or-treating. Apple-picking in the fall. The look on his parents’ faces when they hold their grandchild for the first time. “Maybe I’ll be a dad . . .” Ben said. “But, hey, I’m not the one settling down, about to get married.”

For a nation—for a world—with no trouble starting wars, and stoking fears, and standing apart, they hadn’t forgotten how to come together.