Beat. Rest. Beat. by Sammy Sussman

Beat. Rest. Beat. is based on my fall break experience. It started in early September, when my grandmother had an extreme cardiac incident. I was quite close with my grandmother growing up. She would visit me at camp every summer. I used to think that I got my musical abilities—her mother and father were talented violinists and she played cello as a child.
Shortly after she was hospitalized, I made plans to go visit her over fall break. After a weekend of visiting her with my family, I spent six hours alone with her as she was transferred out of the hospital. That morning, however, I had received multiple emails from an important source on an investigative article I was working on. This was my first experience with serious investigative journalism, and as the machines behind me monitored the beating of my grandmother's heart I prepared to transfer reporting beats, from arts to news, innocent reviews to serious journalism. I was working on something I felt strongly about, something I was willing to dedicate four months of my life to. Yet that day it was also a distraction from my grandmother and the beating of her heart.