Every week she humbles me with her work as an ICU Nurse. Every week she leaves me speechless in the most impossibly consistent manner. She provides me a window into a world that I had no conceptions of… really a world that none of us want to see, because when we see that world, it’s usually in the most unfortunate circumstances. And frankly, we’re not always in a place to appreciate what is going on.
I am constantly stunned with her empathy, her fortitude, her ability to adapt, her intelligence, and the sheer amount of human-will she brings into her work. Yet, throughout all of the joy and pain, she still comes home and compartmentalizes it, as if it was just another day at work. Like she has any other job. As if her bad day at work is the sum of my own. Then she goes back into work and focuses every bit of her self into a job that many, if not most of us, myself included, would surely fail at.
While I believe she is an uncommonly talented nurse, I happen to know she doesn’t feel that way. Her humble self-awareness only strengthens my opinion. I recognize my bias for her, but I also acknowledge that many of my friends and family in nursing share most, if not all of her traits. If there is another profession so engulfed by the flames of empathy and goodness, I can’t wait to discover it.
Our society has been inundated with loosely defined heroes; I personally have some rather politically fragile opinions about that. I do not want to conflate this topic with more socially abject statements, but trust me when I say I don’t use the word lightly. Hero. A great nurse is the very definition of a true hero.
These people are one of the last great stewards of humanity and are rarely treated as such. If you know a nurse, thank them now. Thank them for what they have done for us, and thank them for what they will do for us.