The Gift of a Quieted Breath
Hannah Vaca evokes an important learning moment in this moving and heartfelt poem, as she reflects on the gift a donor’s body provides and how a donor’s sacrifice impacts the lives of developing health professionals.
Author: Hannah Vaca, SPT
Hannah Vaca is a Doctor of Physical Therapy student at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Originally from South Dakota, she completed her Bachelor of Arts at Augustana University in Sioux Falls. She not only enjoys learning about the human body and how it functions, but how we as humans process the world around us, express ourselves, and relate to others. This perhaps explains her undergraduate degrees as a Biology major with an English minor. This poem, specifically, was penned to capture the dichotomy of these two fields of study while representing how they unite in order to understand the human body while simultaneously empathizing with the life the donor lived. This piece captures the unique experience of working in an anatomy lab that healthcare students have and how it ultimately kickstarts their professional journey.