Ice cream.

I've told this story before.
This was in medical school, sometime in the clinical years, on my trauma surg rotation. I had a quiet rotation, as these things go; considering I was at $ major_trauma_center and had no interest in doing surgery, even, at the time. lt was overall enjoyable. But it was also my first brush with death.
So there I was, on an ordinary call day, walking into the ED for a neck wound. I remember the patient - I don't think I'll ever forget her - older, frightened. Very frightened. I talked to her, as we were wheeling her down to the OR for exploratory surgery, held her hand, told her about myself. She listened. I think the politeness helped her pretend she wasn't so afraid.
They went to lay her down on the table as she was preparing for surgery, and she fought them - suddenly, as if she were fighting for her life. The gentle frightened woman turned strong with fear, and then she said "I can't breathe. I'm going to die."
And she did. There was no amount of swearing or chest compressions or needles or effort that could get her intubated and breathing; she slipped away despite it all. And I looked at her and up at the trauma surgery team of tough guys and surgeons who dropped the F-bomb like my mother taught me please and thank you. And all I could think was "I can't cry now."
Chief resident looked at me; big and bad as the rest, but I know it hit him hard too. Said "Come on-we need to do burn unit-rounds." I jumped at the pretense of normality. We went up to the burn unit and we saw one or two folks and then he cut through the kitchenette.
"Here." he opened the freezer and took out an ice cream bar. "Go eat this somewhere where the nurses won't see."  I ate my ice cream and I had my cry and we never said anything about it after that. We didn't have to.
Sometimes I miss knowing someone else is taking final responsibility for what I write; knowing I have someone looking over my shoulder and making sure it's that much harder to make a big mistake. But mostly, these days, I just wish I had someone to hand me an ice cream bar and tell me to go eat it somewhere that the nurses can't see. It makes everything just that much smoother.