May you remember this day always, Mary Morgan

by

Patti Dickinson

My daughter, Mary Morgan, a third year nursing student at Regis University, is currently doing her first rotation. The lead-up to this was two grueling years doing all the prerequisites to arrive on the doorstep of hard-won scrubs and a stethoscope around her neck. She is spending her first two weeks of rotation in a nursing home. I am frequently graced with her immediate response to what is going on at school, with her spur-of-the-moment cell phone calls as she walks back to her apartment, oftentimes breathless, with the sound of the weather, be it wind or rain, as a backdrop.

This afternoon she called to tell me about Elaine, her patient for the next two weeks. She and Elaine sat at a table this morning, eating breakfast with another student/patient duo. The other student was feeding her patient some baby food-like concoction. This woman couldn't talk, nor could she feed herself. A pause in the conversation, then Mary said, quietly and with a catch in her throat, that she looked over at the woman halfway through the meal, and she had a single tear running down her cheek. We talked about that...and I could hear the struggle in her voice. She talked of how this woman was someone's mother, someone's grandmother, someone's sister, maybe someone's spouse.

I got off the phone and prayed that she never, ever lose this sensitivity. That she never just considers a tear rolling down a wrinkled, well-worn cheek to just be part of the job. That sometimes, it's important to feel that empathy deeply enough that it hurts, that witnessing another's pain, be it physical or emotional, is a privilege and an honor and that she always hold that honor gently in her heart.

And with that, the sturdiness to weather whatever comes her way in the line of duty.