Knowing what time it is as a peds ICU nurse is a big deal.

There’s the timing of med administration so you dose your patient safely. The timing of when your critical blood pressure and sedation medications are going to run out, and boy you better have your next syringe ready to go. The timing of your tasks so you can go on break and help your busy colleagues. The timing of the science and schedule of nursing.

But there’s also the timing that comes with careful listening and deep empathy.

When you see the writing is on the wall for your patient who will never really recover, and parents are deep in disorientation and grief as they try to decide if it’s time to let go, the timing of words and energy make a huge difference.

Blow too quickly and breezily though a room that is cloaked in the heaviness of a life interrupted too abruptly, and we communicate our disconnection with the need parents have for gentleness and grounding, over aggressiveness and spinning.

Rushing what may feel to us like vital conversations, before the family is ready to wholly enter into them, only builds more inclination in them towards guardedness and self-preservation.

It’s the timing of gentle probes, open questions, and holding one’s tongue until you’ve carefully discerned how they’re hearing things and if they’re hearing things at all. It’s the timing of silence to let them sort through the overwhelming thoughts in their own minds. It’s the timing that is vital to the art of nursing.