Captain of My Ship

He was in 5th grade and wanted the Lego set for The Nightmare Shark Ship (and a Nerf gun).

He’d been on a pirate ship, so he knew what he was getting into.

This past year, he was a right defensive tackle on his school football team, but for the past two and a half years, he’d been caring for his dad, who had cancer.

He had been a primary caregiver for his father, doing all the hard tasks, from giving medicine to getting him in his wheelchair or on the toilet.

His dad died on October 22nd of this year. So, for 2024, he hopes to go with the flow and play with his friends.

Listener Poet Elizabeth Pringle

Inova Schar Cancer Institute

December 2023

With The Nightmare Shark ship

I will cut through the waters

Sails full, only horizon ahead!

I am the captain and creator!

Brave enough to face

Unknown dangers

And strong enough to care

For my father.

I am ready to command

The waves and the winds

The sudden storms

My harbor is kindness

My pirate’s gold – compass

More Poems & Stories

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When we met, she was coming off a stretch of nine 14-hour shifts. She was tired but in good spirits.

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High Notes

She reflected on how her resilience was born from moments of shared mirth amid life's trying chapters.

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“Life is complex and dirty, but digging in is important to me,” she said. “Maybe if more of us understood history, we could understand each other better.”

Seams

We are expected to research, contribute to scholarship, earn grants – all on our own time.

Rescue

We are expected to research, contribute to scholarship, earn grants – all on our own time.

The Waiting Room

Every day, I try to see through the patient lens, and I ask: what can we do to change this broken system?

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Captain of My Ship

He had been a primary caregiver for his father, doing all the hard tasks

Caregiver's Notes

She was very proud of her daughter and has hopes for “a bright future that’s as pain free as possible”

We Can Be Kind

“I’m trying to focus on doing little things to make people feel better during everything that’s going on in the world,” she told me.

what gives

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New Year’s Evolution

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“It’s weird,” she said. “This is one of the biggest accomplishments of my life, but it doesn’t feel like it.”

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Our Own Legacy

“I’m not in a good place with everything happening in the world,” this poemee said.

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