Padmavathi Karri, known as V, is a student at McGovern Medical School. She is currently on a research and service focused gap year between her third and fourth year of medical school. Her Field Note essay “Stuck” appears on the Fall 2019 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine.
The word “sorry” stopped at the tip of my tongue. For what exactly was I saying sorry? Was I sorry that he was imprisoned and missed seeing his daughter grow up? Was I sorry for the choices he made that led him behind the bars? It did not feel like my place to feel sorry for him—he did what he felt he had to do. I think.
Instead, I nodded and prayed that was enough. Maybe I wrote about him to apologize for not being better or more helpful. In that way, Philip Berry’s “Semantics in the Elevator” (Fall 2016 Intima) resonated with me. I, too, think about the word sorry a lot. How to say it. When to say it. How to differentiate between I am sorry I did this to you and I am sorry this happened. Sometimes I want to say sorry to everyone for every little thing. The ways people suffer is a reel running through my head, playing itself without end.
What I want to say is “that sounds so difficult—I cannot imagine.” In fear of how others may respond to my creation of intimacy, I say sorry. Sometimes, I say nothing at all.
Padmavathi Karri, known as V, is a student at McGovern Medical School. She is currently on a research and service focused gap year between her third and fourth year of medical school. V has a background in social work and is curious about many things including how social justice interweaves itself into medicine and how race and gender influence perception and health care. This curiosity sometimes manifests as literary scribbling and dialogue with others.
© 2020 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine