Prayers and Miracles

Calzona Review 11x11  “All I Could Do was Cry”

“There’s a thing we say when someone dies. We say it to the patient’s family. We say, “Im sorry for your loss” ...It’s a pat little phrase, and an empty one. It doesn’t   begin to cover what is actually happening to them. It lets us empathize without forcing us to feel their devastation ourselves. It protects us from feeling that pain, that dark,  sinking relentless pain. The kind that can eat you alive. And everyday, I thank God for that. “

Drowning in a sea of tears, I swim to shore and try to get a hold of myself after watching the episode.

Three minutes in and I was a mess. The tears were just endless from thereon.  It was an ep that had my goose bumps and tears vying for my attention ALL THROUGHOUT.

11x11  was an episode about faith… and about hope. About miracles… and about reality. About unanswered prayers … and unexpected gifts. 

It had me at that first  top shot of Amelia lighting a candle at the chapel.  And all the other scenes of the characters having their own quiet time at the chapel. Those top shots with the  character/s, the candle rack and the Bible-- It was all  just…different..and touching.

Indulge me with my superlatives— the ep  was wonderfully  written by Elizabeth J.B. Klaviter, and brilliantly directed by Ron Underwood.  Supremely awed by the performances of the whole ensemble  cast and mostly touched by the magnificent  scenes by the episode’s central characters, Jesse Williams, Sarah Drew and Caterina Scorsone.

Sometimes,  a perfect episode happens, and this is it.  It has got to be one of the best eps of Grey’s Anatomy, ever.  Not because it was a tearjerker but because it was  excellent drama,  the kind that Grey’s is known for, and more.

It was not even an issue of screen time about Arizona and Callie. It was an important episode that leaves us with things to ponder on about the Calzona relationship,  even catalytic to their next steps.

Arizona's support for her friends

Arizona was dejected for her friends April and Jackson as Herman informed them that type 2 babies typically die within a few hours after delivery, or sometimes days. And that this was a sad situation of intrauterine fracturing, --.the baby's bones were breaking inside April’s belly...where he is supposed to be safest…sadly, he is in pain.


Arizona voiced out her concern for her friends. In this dialogue, she just really cared.





                               




Arizona:… “why didn’t you call me? I can help them. They need someone who knows them and who cares about them…and who can make it…nice. I want to make it as nice as it can be and youre not nice

Dr Herman: You really care about them don’t you?

Arizona: Yeah I do, They’re my friends.

Herman: That right there is why you don’t have any business being in that room… ”


Saying Herman was "not nice" actually had truth. She wasn’t exactly sugarcoating the situation when she asked April and Jackson to sign the papers and even to sign a death certificate when the baby had not even expired yet. But Herman was actually just being practical and realistic.

Arizona pointing out to Herman's not being nice led Herman to say that Arizona shouldn’t even be on this case. She was off the case and she couldn’t do anything about it.

This actually should have been done way before, because from previous episodes, doctors at GSMH were not to have familial nor friendship ties with their patients. The emotional attachment would not be helpful. Herman told her April Kepner was no longer her patient.

So even when she was off April's case, still, we saw Arizona with all of her concern even at the time when she lit a candle at the chapel and prayed.

Then onscreen were flashbacks of the time she attended to April and her baby inside her womb.

She had been praying for April.

One thing i realized about this scene though is that Arizona believes in a higher being. She prays to God. And of course there is that tiny hope within me that she also prayed for good hopes for her relationship with her ex- wife and their broken marriage.

The episode was about lost hope against a background of raw faith.

Yet juxtaposed was a case of a miracle.

One where Callie was witness.

Callie and the Miracle Baby

The patient who was accidentally shot by her husband, (was hit on the side of the neck),  was in the O.R. for surgery. She was attended to by Callie and Bailey.

Surprise ! The patient was pregnant and was about to give birth to  her child. And even more surprising, she didn't even know that  she was pregnant.

Callie, as badass as ever, not as an Ortho surgeon this time but as an incidental O.B., took on the reins in the emergency childbirth situation in the O.R.

Even if the episode was a certified tearjerker because of April's baby, this scene with Callie delivering the baby was touching.

It was a miracle baby.

Worthy to note that Callie was the doctor on hand to deliver the baby and it gave so many feels.

Reminiscent of when she gave birth to her own baby in season 7, a baby named Sofia (whom we  miss), delivered at a time when Callie’s health was also in a sensitive state. When chances of her survival was also 50-50.

And wonder of wonders, as the patient's husband mentioned, this baby was unexpected. They had been wanting a baby for years and couldn’t have one. And here was his wife who just had one, when they didnt even know she was pregnant.

It was nothing short of a miracle.

Adding to the emotions after Bailey, Maggie and Callie saved the woman from death was that Callie, a woman who had learned she is not capable of giving birth, delivered the woman's baby. She delivered a miracle baby.

Does this make me want to wish that Callie may just have a miracle baby someday? Nothing is impossible, really.

So in the end scene,  Arizona thanked Herman for taking care of her friends, for admittedly, it would have been hard for her to have been in there with her pained friends.

Both sat side by side in a reflective staring-in-blank-space mode, taking in all the sadness that transpired that day.

For Herman, it was another day at the office, with an unsaved fetus, but she did admit, in all her jaded toughness, that it was never easy for anybody.

For Arizona, it was concern for a loss, experienced by one of her best friends at the hospital.

“We can’t get too close . If we felt even a little of the love and the joy and the hopes that our patients are saying goodbye to, we’d never be able to function. So we say 'we’re sorry for your loss.'
And we hope it offers something. Some little bit of support. Some bit of peace, some bit of closure, something good. Some little piece of beauty in the midst of some place dark. An unexpected gift, just when it’s needed most.”

Our beloved doctors of GSMH are people too. They experience pain, love and loss. And when they do offer their supportive word to their patients, trust that they, too go through their own pain and carry their own burdens.

They too had been challenged enough to question their own faith. And they do know what they're saying when they offer their words of support to their patients.

April who had unquestioning belief, and who believed enough for herself and Jackson, had her own faith shaken by this tragedy. All plans of rearing a child were not to be. At least for now.

But in the end, she did come to terms with their loss, as she comforted the fiance of a patient who expired. By giving comfort, and encouragement, she too helped herself and regained strength, and retained faith.

Arizona and Callie

Arizona had her own loss during her miscarriage. Callie had a similar experience giving birth to a baby even after having been in a car crash.

Important parallels, as they both gave support to their patients and empathized with them.

And both are still standing, having weathered their own storms, as they support their patients.

Still no scene with Callie and Arizona together. They were in the same confines of the hospital. So near yet so far from each other.

Each one with separate experiences, all essential to their growth as individual human beings.

Opposite experiences though. Arizona experiencing devastation for the loss of her friend’s child—an expected baby who was not meant to stay long on earth; and Callie experiencing the birth of an unexpected miracle bundle of joy,

One is sympathetic to her friend’s loss, one is touched by a miracle.

For however these experiences will affect their strength and love for each other, we are left to hope. Hope that all these will contribute to their strength of character, and make their hearts more loving, to make them find their way back to each other.

Still bracing myself for that possibility that Callie will date again. And thinking it may be necessary for this story of Calzona.

More challenges to come and hoping for a scene with Callie and Arizona together again after two or three more episodes. The wait will be over in no time.

Till then.


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