[opening voice over] When I was five, my mom lost me in a park. I don’t remember much except one minute I was riding the carousel and then the next, she was gone. I don’t remember how I found her. I don’t remember how I got home. All I remember is what happened next. She told me not to worry. She told me everything would be fine. Funny, isn’t it? The way memory works. The things you can’t quite remember, and the things you never forget. The carousel never stops turning.
“How to Save a Life” · Season 11, Episode 21
In this episode: Meredith Grey (4), Derek Shepherd (3), Zola (1), Penny (1)
Okay, Zo-Zo, walk a little faster 'cause we are late. And who can never be late?
Surgeons.
What happens if surgeons are late?
People die.
Right on, sister.
It's a beautiful day to save lives.
WWinnie
What does that mean?
It's just a thing that I say.
Every kiss before the right kiss doesn't count anyway. I've kissed a lot of women. The first time I kissed my wife, well... I mean, she wasn't my wife then. She was just this girl in a bar. And when we kissed, it... it was like... I gotta tell you, it was like I never kissed any other woman before. It was like the first kiss. The right kiss.
WWinnie
Derek?
(thinking) Winnie... You shouldn't be in here.
WWinnie
I know you're not dead. Know how I know? 'Cause I can feel your pulse, which means your heart is beating. Your heart is beating, which means you're not dead, okay? Hey. Eyes on me. You stay not dead, okay? It's a beautiful day to save lives, right? So you stay not dead.
PPaul
Ma'am? I thought that if this was a good time, I might take a moment to explain how this all works.
Where are the papers?
PPaul
Mrs. Shepherd, there's some things you need to know... some things we need to discuss. Difficult things.
I'm a doctor. Dr. Grey. I'm a surgeon, just like my husband was. I know how this works. You've waited the requisite number of hours, and now you can officially declare him dead. Normally, you'd talk to me about organ donation. But by the looks of his chart, there's not much left that works to donate. So, the ICU needs a bed. Those must be the papers... the papers you want me to sign to decide what to do with my husband... Now that he's dead, but not really dead. Do we ship him off to a long-term-care facility and cross our fingers and hope for fairy tales and magic? Or do I pull the plug? And stop all curative intervention? Discontinue all routine monitoring, remove all the catheters, drains, and tubes, end any and all treatments that might provide comfort to the patient. Terminate all life-sustaining measures... and behave as any sane doctor would behave. Does that about cover it, doctor? Is that what you want to talk to me about... while I sit here with my sleeping children? You want to talk about killing my husband? Give me the papers.
PPaul
Ma'am...
Give me the papers!
I'm so sorry. I know that that's useless to you right now. But I am. He saved all those people. And it was my job... to save him. And I failed. And now... He's gonna die... Because I was not a good enough doctor... to keep him alive.
Yeah, you're right. You did fail. You weren't good enough. But do you know what tomorrow is? It's Friday. There's gonna be more patients who come in who need you to save them... someone's mother, someone's kid, someone's husband. They need you to save them because they can't save themselves. So learn from this, better yourself, and you will be better for next time.
What if I'm not?
You will be.
How can you know that?
Because he was your one. Every patient you treat, you're going to see my husband's face and remember that he was the one that died on your watch. He will haunt you. The hard ones always do. And it only takes that one. But that one will make you work harder, and they make you better. Or they make you quit, and you don't get to waste what would have been the rest of my husband's life being a quitter. So get back inside because you're not saving any lives out here.
I really am so...
Yeah, I know. I know.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Grey's Anatomy pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.