Labor Day, Labor Weekend

Last Friday was one of my harder days
at Hospice.
The kind of day people assume I have
all the time, when told where I work.
I rushed from visit to visit all day,
had lunch around 3:00.
In the morning was called
to the home of a family I've visited for a year
because my friend and patient had died quietly in his sleep.
Spent an hour mid-day on the phone with a grieving widow.
Was called at the end of the day
to the home and bedside of another longtime patient,
who was in her last hours of life.
Left her home at 5:45, with work still to do
and no more week in which to do it.
Went to sleep Friday night
trying to figure out how to get my paperwork turned in
and when I would prepare for a weekend funeral.
I thought about work all weekend.
Even with company for Labor Day,
and a few hours at the Apple Festival,
I kept having to excuse myself to go back to working.
Sunday I only had three hours on my timesheet,
but the whole day was consumed by the memorial service
in my thoughts and energy.
For the record, my boss told us not to do funerals on the weekend,
but sometimes I'm a soft touch, to my detriment.
Monday, even though it was a holiday,
I found myself at work,
pretty sure it was my own fault for not
just taking the day off like company policy allows
and all my smarter coworkers did.
So my body was at work,
and my attitude was in the cellar,
angry mostly at myself, for working all weekend
when it was so obviously a time
the rest of the country
knew to take off to renew and relax.
After all these years, I'm still trying to figure out
how to have appropriate boundaries.
When I don't get any sabbath rest,
my work suffers,
my coworkers suffer,
my friends suffer.
My cat seems unaffected,
but cats are much better at knowing when to knock off
and take a nap.