“Feeling more tired than I’d ever felt after work, I walked through the sliding glass doors leading to the small alley that separated the parking garage from the hospital. I usually experienced this passage as a sort of limbo: a seven-foot-long stretch of asphalt that got me to where I parked, a portal where tired nurses left as fresh ones entered. On that morning, though, I felt a breeze on my face as I stepped through the double doors and saw the day’s first light, and it hit me: I’m alive.”
