The following tribute was written by some Staff Members of the Berkshire Medical System.
Pittsfield — You came down from the north — Richmond and Williamstown and Cheshire, and from the south — Sheffield and West Stockbridge and Great Barrington. The February 11th “Recognition Convoy” traveled to Berkshire Medical Center last week with horns and sirens and flashing blue lights. This time, we knew, your red fire trucks, boxy ambulances and painted police cars were not responding to an emergency. Instead, your solemn motorcade came to honor us, the regional health system, 12 months into the global pandemic.
To say it was soothing and life-giving and restorative barely scratches the surface.
For an interminable year, we health care workers at Berkshire Medical Center have confronted the COVID crisis. When the virus first arrived, we instantly became “heroes.” People sent homemade masks and dinners and pallets of snack food. Little did anyone know, that was merely the first surge of COVID-19 patients, with so many more to come.
As the weather cooled and it became harder to dine outdoors, our case numbers rose. The struggle to keep people alive sometimes felt overwhelming. The ICU began to fill with COVID. Part of the third floor and the second became COVID units. By the holidays, the plague was everywhere. Tired of masking and distancing, but long before vaccines, many ended up on our gurneys. Others quarantined around the clock and compulsively washed their hands, yet still ended up in negative pressure rooms.
As the novelty of the crisis wore on, the “heroes” signs fell off the doors like leaves from the trees. The steady stream of generously donated food also trickled down as plexiglass went up everywhere. Fear became palpable and no amount of masking obscured the fatigue we all saw in one another’s eyes.
The shock and awe of springtime danger morphed into grief and mourning of darker days ahead. As autumn faded and winter arrived, we all redoubled our efforts to comfort the sick. This included easing patients’ final moments and facilitating technology-assisted goodbyes between those who could not recover and those who could not visit. All of it was indescribably awful and unequivocally painful.
But then, February 11, you came in your ambulances and fire trucks and police cars. Honestly, it was a balm on the wounds of this year. The occasional whoop of a siren, your flashing lights were all somber shout-outs of official respect. Your waves, your smiles and your crisp salutes moved most of us to tears. We knew that the waving men and women also represented the grandmothers from North County and the dry cleaners from South County and the store owners from all three state lines. It was truly a mutual honor society to wave back, standing still and standing tall along the sidewalk in front of the hospital.
Being remembered, seen, and waved at by a hundred uniformed and helmeted first responders left us all misty-eyed. Words cannot express how much it meant that you, first responders yourselves, and that you, the towns and villages these vehicles represented, came to commemorate us.
But it was the deeply felt sheriff’s words that mattered most: “You have kept our communities safe. Thank you!”
We look forward to the day when we can greet you, our neighbors, family, and friends, without masks and without distancing. Until then, we will continue to cherish the privilege of keeping our community safe, with the memory of that Recognition Convoy close in our hearts.
Thank you.
