01/20/2025
My best friend’s wife is retiring in a couple of weeks. She has been a senior nurse for an unknown to me number of years, probably 45 years in St. Catharines Ontario.
For some reason I started to think about her shifts in ER and then in ICU and then I was struck with the realization that soon it will not be about shift by shift, but lifetimes. A shift is too short to see this. It is full of challenges and often bad news and tough and tiring nights and days.
The cumulative good over years is not often recognized, but this is the time to recognize how many people she’s helped, and as a charge nurse, by extension how many people her wards have helped.
It’s a big number, a massive amount of good spread out over a large area and by extension, friends of families of patients, each done one shift at a time.
She’s still very much alive and planning an amazing retirement, but already she is one of those who have lived a life well lived.
She nor her husband is on LinkedIn but I wanted to share my feelings about how people can have a life well lived.
One day at a time. Start early. Feel great.
Thanks Karen.
