I nodded in mute acknowledgment.
The grand, old man died later that same night with his granddaughter at his side.
I don’t know what overtook my objectivity that evening so long ago when I relied on something beyond science, beyond myself. But I’ve come to depend on it in a large way—especially when I need to come down a few notches.
Virginia L. Clark
Love in Your Hands
Love is all we have, the only way that each can help the other.
Euripides
The old man lay all alone
and stared out through his haze.
I knew his eyes were almost gone
and wondered at his gaze.
Perhaps he saw his childhood
on carefree running legs.
But his legs were long-since lost
to diabetes’ grasp.
To change his bed and bathe him
was my only task.
Not wanting much to startle him
I called out softly, “Sir.”
He stirred his body toward me
glazed eyes focused near.
“Who’s that? I don’t know the voice.
What you doin’ here?”
Name spoken, “I just came to help
to fix your bed and such.”
“Watch out! Don’t hurt me none,”
he shrank back from my touch.
“Them other ones, they’s rough you know,
they jerks and pulls me ’round.
And sometime I gets afraid
they’ll drop me to the ground!”
I couldn’t lift him all alone
not causing fear or pain.
No one around, and so I went
to get the lifting frame
We talked and slowly did
the things we had to do
Refreshed and dressed
he grasped my hand
And said, “Son, God bless you.
Some folks is rough and short, and mean
and though you be a man
I wanna tell you somethin’
You got love in your hands.”
Ken Cyr
Silent Angel
A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.
Henrik Ibsen
Christmas Day, 1967. I’m a patient at the Ninety-Third Medical Evacuation Hospital near Saigon, Vietnam. Today I’m semi-alert, but unable to sleep and agonizingly scared. The constant aching pain in my arms and a pounding headache make me tense. I feel helpless. My spirit feels empty, and my body feels broken. I want to be back home.
It’s impossible to get in a comfortable resting position. I’m forced to try and sleep on my back. Needles, IV tubing and surgical tape are partially covered by bloodstained bandages on my arms.
Two days earlier, my squad’s mission was to secure the perimeter of Saigon for a Christmas Day celebration featuring Bob Hope and Raquel Welch. While on a search-and-destroy patrol, near the village Di An, we were ambushed on a jungle trail by a small band of Vietcong guerillas. My right thumb was ripped from my body by AK-47 assault-rifle fire and fragments from a claymore mine grazed my face and neck.
This medical ward has twenty-one sick and injured G.I.s, and one recently captured, young-looking Cambodian. Restrained, he lays severely wounded in the bed next to mine. I’m filled with anger and hostility. As an infantry combat veteran, I’ve been brainwashed to despise the Communists and everything they represent.
The first hours are emotionally difficult. I don’t want to be next to him. I want to have an American G.I. to talk with. As time passes my attitude changes; my hatred vanishes. We never utter a word to each other, but we glance into one another’s eyes and smile. We’re communicating. I feel compassion for him, knowing both of us have lost control of our destiny. We are equals.
The survival of the twenty-two soldiers in the ward depends on the attentiveness and medical care from our nurses. Apparently, they never leave our ward or take time off. The nationality, country or cause we were fighting for never interferes with the loving care and nourishment necessary to sustain us. They are our life-keepers, our guardians, our safety net, our hope of returning home. It’s nice to just hear a woman’s voice. Their presence is our motivation to get well so we can go home to our wives, children, moms, dads, brothers, sisters and friends.
Christmas is a special day, even in a hospital bed thousands of miles from home. Today the nurses are especially loving and gracious. Red Cross volunteers help us write letters to our families. All of us still need special attention plus our routine shots, IVs, blood work and I swallow twenty-two pills three times a day. Even on Christmas, life goes on in our little community, like clockwork, thanks to the dedication of our nurses. They never miss a beat, always friendly and caring.
There’s a rumor that General Westmoreland and Raquel Welch will visit our ward today and award Purple Hearts to the combat wounded. I’m especially hopeful it’s true because I would receive the commendation. The thought of meeting Raquel Welch and General Westmoreland gives me an adrenaline boost that lasts throughout the day.
By early evening we realize they aren’t coming. Everyone is very disappointed, especially me. The day’s activities cease quickly after a yummy Christmas dinner and most of my wardmates slip off to sleep by seven or eight o’clock.
It’s impossible to sleep. The IVs in my arms continue collapsing my veins one by one. I’m pricked and probed by what feels like knives, not needles. My arms are black and blue after many failed attempts to locate a vein for IV fluids. I occasionally doze off, only to be awakened by the agonizing pain of another collapsed vein and infiltrating fluids. My arms are swollen to twice their normal size. This pain is worse than my gunshot wound.
It’s eleven o’clock Christmas night. The ward is silent. My comrades and the Cambodian warrior sleep. I’m tense and suffering.
To avoid waking anyone, I silently signal a nurse. She comes to my side and gazes into my tearing eyes. Quietly, she sits on the side of my bed, embraces my arm, removes the IV, then lightly massages my swollen, painful arms.
Gently, she leans over and whispers in my ear, “Merry Christmas,” and gives me a long, tender hug. As she withdraws, our eyes connect momentarily. She has tears running down her cheeks. She felt my pain. She turns and moves away, ever so slowly back to her workstation.
The next morning I wake slowly. I have slept throughout the night and feel rested. I see while I slept a new IV was inserted in my arm. The swelling is gone. Suddenly, I remember the nurse coming to my side in the night and my Christmas present. I’m thankful and think of her kindness. I look toward the nurses’ workstation to see if I can see my angel nurse, but she’s gone.
I never see her again, but I will forever honor her compassion toward me on that lonely Christmas night.
Duane Shaw
Dedicated to Peggy Ferrera
Child’s Praise
God gave man work, not to burden him, but to bless him; and useful work, willingly, cheerfully, effectively done, has always been the finest expression of the human spirit.
Walter R. Courtenay
Several years ago, I presented a lecture to a large group of parents on the theme of my book, Traits of a Healthy Family. In the lecture, I mentioned how children serve as a primary support system for parents—that, in fact, when a child thanks or praises a parent, it means more to the parent than when a spouse does the same.
After my lecture, a young mother came up and handed me the following note. I don’t know her and I never saw her again, but I treasure her story:
Besides being a wife and a mother, I work part-time as a nurse in labor and delivery. One evening while my husband and I were getting the children ready for bed, I was called in to work and ended up working through the night. I came home exhausted and depressed at the thought of taking care of the kids by myself for the long day ahead. As I was standing in the kitchen feeling a little sorry for myself, my three-year-old,
Jacob, came and stood in front of me. He looked up at me with an expression of awe on his face. “Mom, you’re really a nice lady.”
I was a little surprised. “What made you say that, Jake?” I asked. He answered, “Because you go and help ladies have babies in the dark.”
Suddenly, the day ahead didn’t seem so long.
Dolores Curran
Ministering Angels
As night and nature took their stance among a unit of weakened children, I took mine as a pediatric oncology nurse one placid evening. The late hours slipped away and, if someone quietly drew near to a child’s door, the sound of honest slumber would tickle the ear. I glided from bed to crib to bed again, appraising the quality of comfort these children so deserved. Tucking in little toes; rescuing brown teddy bears from the bed’s fierce side-rails and returning them safely under their companion’s arm; quietly humming, “Sleep, sleep, sleep . . . tender warrior. Your Father loves you and he’s whispering, ‘Well done.’”
A girl of seven years lay under a blanket of cotton blue. Her face was that of a darling with lengthy raven lashes and rose-colored lips. My hand reached for hers, and I held it closely as I silently offered thanksgiving for the precious gift of a child in tranquil stillness. I kissed her bare head, then quietly turned to leave when I heard, “Miss Allison?”
I knelt alongside her, gently reaching for her hand once again.
“I want to be what you are when I am grown.”
“Oh, Dearest, you will be a wonderful nurse one day. Of that, I am sure.”
“No,” she whispered. “It is an angel that I want to be. I want to be an angel.”
Allison Leigh Usher
In honor of Bethany Garrett, age 7
A Gift from Nana
It is the will and not the gift that makes the giver.
Bruno Lessing
On the morning of March 22, 1995, my sister-in-law went into Los Robles Medical Center to be induced into labor. My husband and I arrived at the hospital in the late afternoon to be there for the exciting event. When we got to her room, everyone present seemed to be in a state of shock.
At the change of shifts, the head nurse, Charlotte, noticed my sister-in-law’s last name and immediately paused. The last name brought back a memory of a woman she had once cared for twenty years ago at a hospital fifty miles away. Consequently, she decided to assign herself to my sister-in-law’s care that evening. She entered the room and hesitantly asked my brother if he knew of a JoAnn. Stunned, he answered, “Yes, she was my mother.”
Although we were excited for the birth of our niece, we could not forget that the next day would be exactly twenty years since my mother had passed away after battling cancer. Charlotte’s eyes grew wide as she realized that she was assisting in the delivery of JoAnn’s first grandchild.
To our amazement, Charlotte actually remembered my father, brother and me, and throughout the evening she shared several endearing stories of the friendship she had developed with my mom for over a year. The commonality of having children the same age made their relationship especially close.
Well past midnight, my sister-in-law was not making progress, so a C-section was performed and Kylee Ann entered the world. For the first time in twenty years, the sadness I so often felt on this day, the anniversary of my mother’s death, was replaced with the joy of new life.
Two days later, as Kylee Ann was being discharged, Charlotte came in holding a delicate white porcelain figurine of a large bird perched on a branch looking down at a smaller bird.
“Your mother gave this to me as a thank-you gift when I took care of her twenty years ago. I’ve cherished it all these years. Now I pass it on to Kylee Ann”—a gift from her Nana.
Terri Murcia
Thank You, Mrs. Dickenson
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we’ve already done.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Patients may not be aware of how they can affect the lives of hundreds of people.
After my first year of night duty, I felt overworked and under appreciated as I worked five nights per week on a very busy med-surg floor. We often had fourteen patients each, and that was before IVACs, IV admixtures, unit dose medications and Pyxis distribution. In other words, we were very busy. Every two hours, patients had to be turned, deep-breathed and coughed. Surgical dressings had to be checked and marked. Without computerized or checklist charting, head-to-toe assessment had to be documented every two hours on every patient. I did my best, but as a “new grad” I felt overwhelmed and very inadequate to meet the needs of my patients.
After an especially difficult night, my clinical coordinator announced she wanted to see me in her office. My heart sank to my feet. I was doing the best I could to care for my patients, do all my charting and care planning, and maintain my composure while on duty. I finished counting the narcotics with one of the oncoming nurses and reluctantly dragged my body into her office, prepared for my reprimand.
The clinical coordinator closed the door behind me and asked me to sit down. This was too much for me. I could feel a lump in my throat; my eyes misted. She reached into her drawer and took out what looked like a letter.
“Do you remember a Mrs. Dickenson in room H723-B?”
“No, I don’t really remember a Mrs. Dickenson in that room. Was there a problem?” I asked, fighting back tears. The name didn’t stand out to me. I could barely remember names from one week to the next because of the high turnover of patients.
“Well, maybe you should read this then,” she said, handing me the letter.
In very shaky handwriting was written the following:
Dear Head Nurse on 7 Hamilton,
I was a patient on your floor in the recent past. I’m sorry, but I don’t recall everyone’s name, but one name stood out to me. It was my night nurse. I remember her soft, comforting voice in the dark. She was the cool hand on my fevered forehead. She diligently checked on me every couple of hours and made sure that I was comfortable and well cared for. I thank her from the bottom of my heart.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Dickenson
I was stunned. I had expected a scolding, but instead received one of the greatest gifts I’d ever been given: words of thanks from someone’s heart.
Fifteen years later, I still carry those words in my heart. I orient new night nurses according to them and practice them as I treat every patient. That thoughtful letter has guided many hands during the night over many years.
Georgann Phillips Schultz
There for Me
Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
May, 1998
When the call came, I knew she would not live through the morning. I watched as her frail body struggled one last time, finally giving up the two-year battle with chemotherapy, radiation, fatigue and pain caused by the breast cancer she had fought so hard to overcome.
Then a steady touch wiped her brow and held her hand. A soothing voice whispered in her ear with patience, tenderness and love. This touch, this voice provided me, too, the comfort I needed to ease the pain of the inevitable passing of my mother.
May, 1999
The loud ringing of the phone brought me out of the deep sleep I needed so desperately.
My husband had been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy. For five years we had coped with the ups and downs of Jim’s health and, finally, the decision to put him on the heart transplant list. As we waited for a heart, we lived our life as fully and normally as possible. He had been on the waiting list four years when he began to rapidly fail. An electronic device was surgically implanted to help his heart function until a transplant could be done.
The months after the device was implanted were the most physically and mentally challenging time of my life. I felt helpless as he fought to recover and gain enough strength to return home, and rejoiced when he finally did. Th
e infection had caught us by surprise; his return to the hospital devastated me.
The phone message cut deep into my heart. Jim had suffered a stroke. He lay in the hospital bed as if asleep. I could hear the surgically implanted ventricular device pumping loudly in his chest. I watched the monitors and prayed the stroke had caused minimal damage.
Then, there she was again. She walked in the room and sat beside me, holding my hand and wiping my tears. She spoke quietly, giving me hope that somehow he would recover, and courage to face the fear if he didn’t. As the day wore on, she quietly listened as I told her that no matter what, I would take him home and tenderly care for him.
She gripped my hand as I learned it was a massive stroke, causing irreversible damage. My whole world stopped in that single moment. I insisted I would not leave him there—I would take him home. Through the following agonizing hours she tenderly sat by my side, as I made irrational plans.
I will never forget the determination in her eyes as she finally stood with me by Jim’s bedside, and calmly and quietly explained that the husband and father I knew and loved for almost thirty years was no longer here—he was in a better place, free of pain and suffering. With her at my side, I held my Jim’s hand, stroked his cheek, and realized I needed to face the inevitable.
May, 2000
My heart filled with love, pride and sadness as she walked toward me with her diploma.
Love, because she was the glue that had held me together during my darkest hours.