I am a defense attorney. Lauren is quite lucky she had you. Some of us are quite unkind when abuse of power crosses our threshold.

I had a case not unlike this one where prison medical staff forced my client to have a very painful procedure. He refused, then resisted. The COs finally handcuffed him to his chair and held him down. The nurse - the doc was on call - berated my client while she abused him to "treat" him. During his struggles, my client headbutted the nurse. The nurse INSISTED on charges being levied.

Abuse of power is a regular part of a criminal defense attorney's diet. My mother, however, has been a nurse since I was a child. I could almost feel her rage behind what my client suffered. I was livid — which is such a horrible space to be in when you need to think. What kind of human being ??? Anyway, had I not been that mad, I would have made different decisions.

I examined the COs just fine. But then the nurse took the stand. This monster. Monster. For the first time in my career, I crossed a witness with a conscious decision not to retract my teeth. I wanted it to hurt. It was stupid, no doubt. But we were all walking out of that room that day in bandages.

At some point, the judge stepped in. He was angry and stopped my cross cold. This judge was an old, White guy, on the bench as one of many retired judges to bleed off some of the stress from our two full time judges. Decorum mattered, the courtroom was NOT a theater, and the law demanded respect in the absolute and from all quarters. I knew I was in trouble, but what was done was done. And look — I am not even going to lie in the re-telling: me and my temper were skert.

The judge called all the witness from the hallway back into the courtroom. The nurse was still on the stand, and he asked her to step down. The COs came in. The courtroom deputies were there. What happened next was something I had never seen before or since.

The judge — normally composed and a bit austere — was visibly furious, and turned to the nurse. He looked her right in the eye and said "my wife has been an ER nurse for decades. That work is a calling. It requires not a tolerance for difficult patients, but unwavering compassion for their care." He paused then, as if weighing something, and then finally said "That job is not meant for everyone," and dismissed the case.

I was proud that day, in the exact same way I am proud of you now. That shit is hard. It is personal. It is lonely.

But it is good, and it is just, and though it is not, in fact, a job meant for everyone, it is a job that was clearly meant for you.

Chest tap, fam.