Thirteen years ago, I was still learning how to breathe inside a hospital.

I was a brand-new emergency room nurse, fresh out of training, wearing my scrubs like borrowed armor. I checked charts twice. Sometimes three times. My hands shook when I signed my name, not from weakness, but from the weight of knowing that mistakes in this place could never be taken back.

I wanted to help. I just didn’t yet trust myself to do it right.

The call came in just before midnight.

Multi-vehicle accident. Two adults. One child.

When the gurneys burst through the emergency doors, the room filled instantly with motion and noise. Voices overlapped. Monitors chirped. Shoes squeaked against tile. The choreography of crisis unfolded the way it always does, fast and practiced and urgent.

And then I saw her.

She was three years old. Tiny. Standing still in the middle of all that chaos. She wore a pink-striped shirt that looked far too thin for how cold the night must have been. Her eyes were wide and searching, following the adults rushing past her like she was watching a world she didn’t belong to anymore.

Her parents didn’t survive.

We tried anyway. We always do. But when the doctor finally shook his head, the room went quiet in that particular way only hospitals know. Not silence. Just the absence of hope.

And there she was.

Alone.

No one had told her yet. No one knew how.

I knelt down in front of her and held out my arms. I didn’t say much. I didn’t need to.

She ran into me and wrapped herself around my neck like she’d been waiting for permission.

She wouldn’t let go.

So I stayed.