On Witnessing the Precipice between Life and Death

In the context of hospital intensive care units, lives often hang in tenuous balance among potential healing, continuing survival, and death. Caretakers and loved ones, both family and friends, who are present to accompany and lend support to the stricken individuals are witnesses to suffering that embodies pain, discomfort, and prolonged uncertainty. My experiences throughout a concentrated period of being present in three, overlapping situations of people in the liminal space of the ICU are described. This essay explores the process of witnessing such suffering as both moral and communicative, sensory and emotive, privileged and responsibility-laden. Interpersonal, public, and intrapersonal aspects of witnessing are considered.