THE HEARTLESS DOCTOR_GROUP 6_SHIFT 2_AMERICAN LITERATURE_ #kindnessiscool #bekindbecool

The first day I stepped into the doctor's office, my eyes went straight to the wall. There was only one mark, a light square with something used to hang. Nothing else, just a sign of something that had been taken down on purpose. You need to get acquainted with this place. Your shift starts tomorrow. Well, my first impression, it wasn't pleasant at all. I had heard some bad rumors about him before. You see that nurse? A new nurse of that doctor. That doctor, the doctor that ended his special life by himself, right? Yes, he was so lucky because he didn't face a lawsuit over that mess. The Heartless Doctor. Are you sure that you can work under him? Who are you? I'm his former nurse. I'm the one who helped him end his special life by himself. Every sentence I heard, all it made me more confused. They called him a Heartless Doctor, the one who had ended a patient's life. Because kindness, to them, meant never letting a patient die. The person who told me about the incident was the doctor's former nurse. She was terrified and exhausted. And then she told me the details about that night, exactly one month ago. According to her, the patient's family split into two sides. Some begged to keep treating their father. Some begged to let their father be free. But the most surprising thing, according to the old nurse, was the wife. She just stood there silently, no shouting, no rambling like the others. Later, in the hospital room, after everyone else had left, the patient quietly asked the doctor for the right to choose his own death, saying that he did not want to suffer from cancer any longer. The old nurse said she was the one standing there when the patient signed the written request for voluntary active euthanasia. The old nurse later told me that she had been haunted by that moment for a long time. The patient's family accused the doctor of being a murderer. Yet she could never understand how come the patient's wife remained throughout the scene. One week after that incident, a colleague came to confront him. To bear the shock and the rumors, she decided to quit her position. And the following week, I was assigned to be the doctor's private nurse. That story the old nurse told me never left my head. I thought everything had settled down. After all, it had already been a month since it happened. Then one day, out of nowhere, I saw a woman place a gift. To my shock, it was the same wife. The calm one the old nurse had told me about. She hadn't come earlier. She said she needed one full month to arrange the funeral, sort the papers, and find the courage to open her husband's diary. Only now did she come looking for the doctor to tell him the whole story. I don't know why, but she begged to see him. She said the doctor had refused to meet any family right after the incident. So I quietly opened the door for her. Only one month after the funeral, I finally dared to open this diary. My husband was a doctor for 30 years. And during that time, he believed one thing very firmly. That kindness meant keeping people alive. No matter how much they suffered, no matter how much they begged, he didn't allow the treatment to stop. Not once. And he called it kindness. No, as long as your heart is still beating, my duty is to keep you alive. He used to say that euthanasia was giving up. And for him, letting patients die meant he failed as a doctor. He tried to against the laws when it opposed to him. Kindness meant never letting go. And on the last page of the diary, he wrote, I saved too many thin corpses, but I never saved a single soul. You know, that day in the room, I stood perfectly still. Not because I was strong. But I had watched him suffer the pain for a very long time. And I just wanted to expect his final decision. Doctor, my husband spent his whole life believing he is truly kind by keeping people alive. But when the cancer came to him, he finally understood that what he has taken from the others. My husband didn't have the courage to be truly kind, but you did it for him, doctor. Thank you. Thank you so much for finally letting his soul free. Thank you so much, doctor. At the end of that day, he hung it back on the wall. Only then did I realize that the empty space I had noticed before had once held the certificate of honor. You know what? They thank him for it. Thank him. A murderer. I once thought the doctor was a murderer. But I was wrong. He didn't end the life. He ended the suffering. People talk a lot about the right to live. But almost no one talks about the right to die. When a doctor ends a life, is that kindness? Or is it something else entirely? Kindness doesn't have a single definition. It takes many forms. And you can never judge whether someone is good or rule by looking only at what's on the surface. I still don't know what I would choose if tomorrow it were me. But now I know this. Kindness isn't keeping a heart beating at any cost. Sometimes, kindness is having the courage to let someone go if that is what they truly want. And if one day, that choice were yours, what would you do?