Nurses.

More than just workhorses.

We are the jubilant attendant at a baby’s first breath, the diligent guard of the unstable, the lonely attendant in postmortem care.

We intuitively adapt to all types of people:

the poor, the rich, the kind, the offensive, the grateful, the bitter, the safe, the terrifying, the sweet, the perverse, the verbal, the nonverbal, the composed, the disheveled, the steady, the addict, the recovering, the crashing, the brave, the terrified, the living and the dying. 

We are the actors in the scenes where clearly, “Of course this is what we must do!” and in the grey, murky mysteries where we question if anyone belongs here at all.

We are tasked with reading a tense room, finding impossible words, creating quick solutions, holding space for the most incomprehensible situations,

all while quietly calculating the time needed for our medication administration, patient and family education, lab draws, dressing changes, care coordination, diaper changes, bed baths, and a little margin for all the unexpected. 

We bear the courage to show up to a dying patient, to show up to the family of a dying patient, to show up to oneself after being with dying patients, to show up to a grief-avoidant world after being with dying patients. We bear the courage to keep coming back to work after doing all of the above.

We stand in the space that’s in the thick of it all.

Happy Nurses Week to my incredible colleagues who do this indescribable work.