July 16, 2005

  • Ships Passing in the Night

    I‘m always amazed at the people who touch my life. Random acts of kindness. A word. Or even a dream. For every person I’ve met, there is a lesson I have learned.

    In the hospital, we see many ships passing. Some pass through. Some end their journey here. We just treat them for a while, but sometimes we get to know them. What they want to do with their lives. What their biggest hopes are. My job is to help them achieve their goals.

    Sometimes we fail.

    My patients teach me many things. I think the biggest thing they teach me is that nothing is as important as using your life to the fullest. When you’re tired and bed-bound, too weak to lift your hands, too sick to see, too tired to breathe, nothing matters as much as what you’ve done with what you once had. Your body’s just a shell, and what you’ve left behind lives forever. All the people whose minds you touch carry a little piece of you still living. I carry a number of my patients in my mind, and a number of my friends and relatives as well.

    So when they disconnect a respirator, and everyone holds their breath, it becomes the dead who helps them breathe again.

    “I expect to pass through life but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show,
    Or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, Let me do it now, as I shall not pass this way again.”
    — Stephen Grellet

Comments (1)

  • That is one of the most touching things I’ve read all day and in quite some time for that matter. My mom is always getting angry at the other therapists she works with treating their patients like a patient instead of a person. I’m glad that she’s not alone.

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