Emotionally Expensive--Lessons from the NICU

Sometimes when I visit the NICU, I cuddle a baby for the entire time I’m there.  At other times I cuddle a baby for a while and then visit with the nurses who have time to visit.  There are times though when no baby needs my attention; she is asleep or her parents are there. During those times I visit with the nurses as they have time between neonatal responsibilities.  We often talk about the babies in the unit, but sometimes we talk about other things of mutual interest.  Yesterday one of the nurses said something that grabbed my attention.  I thought about it when she said it and I’m still thinking about it now.

I asked her, “How do you deal with the cumulative stories of these babies?  How does it feel to take them all home with you every night?” To my surprise she said, “I don’t take them home with me. My caring stops when I leave. I can’t afford to care too much about other people’s babies who I will never see again after they leave this unit. Taking them home is too emotionally expensive.”  Wait. What did you just say?  I asked, “Emotionally expensive. Had you heard that or did you just make it up?”  She said, “I just made it up.”

Years ago I started a sentence with “I wonder”. My twenty something son said “Dad, you have a smart phone in your hand. You don’t have to wonder anything.”  For better or for worse, I have found that statement to be true.   When she walked away I Googled “emotionally expensive”.  There I found a number of articles on the subject.  I have no doubt that my friend had never heard the phrase and made it up.  Her context and the context I was reading were too entirely different things.  I understood my friend to say, “It’s too emotionally expensive. It costs me too much.”  The context of the articles I read was all in the workplace. It had to do with a person in the office who drains the energy in the room. What he gives to the workplace costs the organization too much. I gathered that it would be better for the organization if he or she wasn’t there.  S/he’s too “emotionally expensive”.

When I’m holding a newborn baby in my arms, I consider that just a few days before she was in the womb of her mother.  For nine months, and many times less, she was floating in amniotic fluid and now she’s cuddled in my arms. I’m looking down at her and she’s looking up at me.  She is very warm against my chest and my arms. Her 99.5 against my 98.6 works for both of us. I generally ask the nurse to tell me her story. Not all the stories are warm and fuzzy. For two hours or so I rock, sing softly, quietly talk non-sense and pray. This tiny baby’s life, her entire life, is for a little while in my arms. She will be in the unit for a few days or a few weeks, then she will be gone home or into foster care. I have no control over either inevitability.

In retrospect, I realize that what my nurse friend put into words, I had already figured out about a year ago. I could cast no stones at my friend who said, “I can care only so much” because without so many words, I had done the same thing.  At that time I was on the verge of resigning my volunteer responsibilities in the NICU. That double-edged sword of love and heartache was cutting too deep.  I realized that what I had no control over, I also had no responsibility for. My only responsibility was to cuddle and love those babies while we were there together. What happened after that was none of my concern.

But can’t “emotionally expensive” apply to much more?  Can’t aspects of any relationship become too “emotionally expensive?”  Can’t it apply to a marriage, a friendship or an extracurricular relationship? Physics tells us that energy can’t be lost, but it can be converted to mass.  Can’t that cumulative mass become too heavy to bear? Can’t any of us care too much for other people and events?  Our circle of caring has to include ourselves.

If you buy something that’s too expensive, you at least have the item you purchased.  If something is emotionally too expensive, you’ll have little or nothing to show for it. Frederick Buechner wrote regarding 1 Corinthians 13. “If you give your body to be burned, you’re burned up and nobody is the better for it”. Jesus said, “My yoke is easy. My burden is light.”  Maybe your burden is trying to tell you something. If you care appropriately, it works not only for those you care about, but it works for you too.  Just ask my  friend at the NICU, you can care too much. Caring is expensive, but it shouldn’t break the bank. It shouldn’t break your heart, either.