Have you ever given someone a bath? Not just a child, but a grown adult, an elder, a person that can no longer care for their body but still is valuable, still has breath and heart and thoughts and a worthy soul...these are the bodies that need bathing as well.
I remember once I bathed a woman in her nineties who had been particularly difficult to get along with. She was in the hospital (obviously) and was battling a gut disease that was taking over her life. I gathered the necessary supplies, dipped the wash cloth into warm water and began to bathe her. I washed her face first, then shoulders, arms, legs. Slowly, as I bathed her, she began to relax and settle, her eyes closing. I helped her roll onto her side and began to wash her back. I thought about the life she had led that required this particular back. A once-strong back that had served a still-strong lady. A back that washed clothes and cooked meals and supported the births of five children. I dried her off and got her comfortable again in bed with fresh linens and a new outfit. I combed her hair and braided it gently. And then I left.
I wish I could tell you that we had a magical bond after that and she became suddenly pleasant and nice. I wish I could tell you that my bath healed her stomach and she left the hospital skipping the next day. The truth is that she was sick before her bath and she was sick after the bath. But I realized something then, that perhaps I had known all along.
I truly believe that the purpose of life is to help others. I know for sure that my God takes joy in the helping hands that reach out, the kisses given, the hugs received. I know for sure that I made her life better, even if just for an hour or so. Everyone is beautiful. Everyone belongs. They may not always be thankful, but we do it anyway. There are things much, much more important than your makeup or your outfit or your car or your phone. I fall into the trap of materialism sometimes, and honestly, I'm never very happy when I'm worrying about those sorts of things.
I wish that I always had a humble heart. I wish that I always looked out for others above myself. But I believe in second and third and fourth chances.
Part of what I miss about being a nursing student as opposed to being an actual nurse is just that quality time that I was able to spend with patients. As a nurse, I'm busy. I don't get to bathe people or talk to them or sit and listen to their stories. Maybe if we looked at souls as a holistic part of healthcare, we would be more successful on a biological level. It's so easy so see six patients and six med passes and six bedrooms instead of six beating hearts that have thoughts and souls and lives. I hope I never harden. I hope I always cry after one of my patients dies. I hope I always have a hard time explaining a terminal disease diagnosis to someone.
Mother Theresa:
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.
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