Archive | December 2024

Improving Myself

Dec31

Activity on the nursing unit had slowed down. Afternoon sunshine peeked into the rooms on the west side of the building. The early in the day hustle-bustle of changing beds and bathing patients, combined with doctor rounds, breakfast and lunch tray delivery and pick-up was over. By two in the afternoon the atmosphere in the halls was mellow as patients either napped or had visitors. Few patients put on their call lights during this time.

The charge nurse looked up from the clipboard in her hands and said, “Kathy, I’m giving you a patient in room 25. Admitting just brought her up.”

I collected supplies to give to the patient, then I wheeled my computer and blood pressure machine into the room. The patient was a well-dressed older woman who was scheduled to have surgery the following morning. Having conversations with total strangers has never been hard for me to do, so we got along very well. Just as I was preparing to leave the room, she asked me, “How long have you been a Certified Nursing Assistant?”

When I tell people the answer to this question, they are usually surprised. I started when I was eighteen. I smiled and confessed, “At the end of September, I will have worked at this hospital for 45 years.”

The newly admitted patient looked shocked. She blurted, “Didn’t you ever want to improve yourself, to become a nurse?”

Her question seemed strange. How was I supposed to respond to questions like that? She most likely considered being a Certified Nursing Assistant to be a low value, unimportant job. I decided to treat the situation with humor, so I chuckled, “Improve myself? Why would I want to do that? I’m so nice the way I am!”

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Amazing Grace

Dec24

After the nurse stepped out of the room, I stared at the ceiling over my bed. My ears were on high alert for the sounds of nurses passing my room in the hallway and their murmured conversations. Nightime darkness shrouded the curtained window, but the pale hallway light sent mysterious, elongated shadows deep into the room. It was one o’clock in the morning and I was exhausted from having just given birth, but sleep was the last thing on my mind.   

Having given birth, I was now a mother to a tiny, helpless infant. When I thought about motherhood, what came to mind was my mom and Mary, mother of Jesus. I wasn’t even in Mom’s league, let alone Mary’s. Giving birth had elevated me into a sphere that was too lofty for a nineteen-year-old who’d never even had the experience of babysitting to attain. Mom and Mary knew so much, while I knew nothing, and yet here I was, a mother, just like them.           

My motherhood hadn’t been a surprise. I’d known a baby was on the way for nearly the entire nine months of my pregnancy. Delving deep into my amazement, I realized the shock I felt was the sudden intense feeling of responsibility for the new soul my husband and I had brought into the world. Up until now the only person I ever had to take care of was myself. Maintaining a house, a marriage and my employment in the very hospital unit where I was now a patient, didn’t seem like anything more than taking care of myself. But now I had a helpless person to look after for the next eighteen years! The immensity of this reality had never dawned on me until now.

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Last Laugh

Dec18

Arnie always told me I was pretty.

We were the same age when he died in 2007. Now I am 18 years older than him.

Will he still think I am pretty when we meet in the here-after?

The digital clock on the stove showed four, but the dimming daylight made it feel like it was eight. My husband called home a while ago and said he would be home soon. We were having roast beef for supper. I opened the oven door to check on its progress, and a blast of heat made me turn my face away. The metal necklace around my throat began to feel hot against my skin. The beef roast looked brown, juicy and tender.

Tossing potholders on the counter, I turned toward the kitchen windows in time to see Arnie driving his work truck and trailer into our driveway. All the lights and reflectors on his rig looked impressive in the late afternoon’s growing darkness. Remembering that today my husband had had fresh lettering applied on his truck and trailer, I slipped into a pair of shoes and pulled on a coat as I hurried out the back door of the house to see it.

Arnie pulled to a stop under the yard light, which automatically turned on just as I walked across the yard. Stepping out of the truck cab, he proudly questioned, “How does it look?”

Both sides of his truck and trailer displayed the words, ‘Arnie’s Farm Care’. His cell and home phone numbers were listed under his business’ name. “Beautiful!” I exclaimed. “The letters are large and easy to see. The garage did a good job!”

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Floor Polish and Paint

Dec11

I sat cross-legged on one of the red vinyl and chrome kitchen chairs, watching Mom at the kitchen counter vigorously kneading bread dough. Christmas was next week but I felt like I couldn’t stand the suspense until the big day! I knew better than to complain that time was passing too slowly. Mom’s answer to that was, “Stop wishing your life away!” I stared at the large red and black Stratford State Bank calendar hanging on the side of a cupboard. Some of my nine-year-old classmates at school talked about having their trees up already, but I knew our tree would not be put up until the afternoon of December 24th.

I perked up when the back door slammed. A minute later my 20-year-old brother, Billy, stepped into the house. He was carrying a can of paint. He announced, “I’m going to give the entrance a fresh coat of paint.”

Mom questioned with surprise, “Does it really need a fresh coat of paint?

Grinning, Billy explained, “It could probably wait, but Christmas isn’t Christmas for me unless I can smell fresh paint.”

“How strange”, I thought, “What does paint have to do with Christmas?” I looked forward to things like listening to WDLB, the local radio station. Besides Christmas songs, during the weeks leading up to Christmas, they had a program every evening devoted to someone reading the letters to Santa that children mailed to them. Then, there was my family’s Christmas cookie decorating night, a tradition carried out each year within a week or two of Christmas.

The cookie night had taken place just last evening. When I came home from school yesterday afternoon, the house smelled of freshly baked cookies. Mom had filled a large roaster to overflowing with cut-out cookies. It took Mom, my sisters and I all evening to decorate them. My brothers even decorated a few when they came in from doing barn chores.

Remembering not only the cookies, but Sister Florence’s instructions on how to correctly use the words, “may and can”, I politely requested, “Mom, may I please have a Christmas cookie to eat?”

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Redeemed Souls

Dec4

Mom watched me reach into my cereal bowl to take another candy. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the kitchen table and commented, “Saint Nicholas was very generous with you again this year.” Today, the feast of Saint Nicholas was a red-letter day. I circled December 6th on the calendar each year and looked forward to it with excitement. It didn’t matter that I no longer believed in Santa Claus, now that I was eleven years old. I enjoyed the yearly tradition of receiving pre-Christmas candy.

Happily chewing the chocolate-covered caramel I’d just popped into my mouth, I grinned and agreeably answered, “Oh! Yes!” but with my mouth so full, my words sounded more like I had hummed them. Early winter darkness had settled over our farmyard an hour ago. Daddy and my brother Billy were in the barn milling the cows.

Last night at bedtime, my brothers and sisters placed cereal bowls on the kitchen table where we usually sit to eat meals, as we do each December 5th. We put letters to Santa in the bowls, in which we tell him what gifts we want to receive for Christmas. During the night, Saint Nicholas takes the letters and fills our bowls with peanuts, candy canes, and chocolate bridge mix.

I found my treat-filled bowl this morning when I came down to eat breakfast. Mom let me have a few pieces of candy, but said I had to leave the rest until after school. I thought about eating candy all day!

My classmates and I were restless all day at school and had a hard time keeping our minds on the lessons our teacher, Mrs. Miller, wanted us to learn. Then there was a big surprise after the afternoon recess. When we filed back into our classroom, we found small brown paper bags on every desk. The bags were from Saint Nichloas, and contained oranges, candy canes, popcorn balls, Christmas taffy, and peanuts.

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