She tells me, “You should have five kids with your face, you’re beautiful,” after she asks how many kids I want and I tell her I think I’m stopping at the one I have. I laugh, because I’m not beautiful.
But I feel seen.

She always calls me beautiful, and I know it’s not my looks. It’s my compassion, my bedside manner. I ask about her day and sometimes I tell her about mine.
She says they don’t talk to her like I do—and that makes me sad.

She’ll tell me about her granddaughter while I prep my supplies, and I’ll remind her to go easy on the girl while I flush her tube.
Her daughter pops in. She knows me by name, wears a look of relief because I’ve already done oral care and tucked her in for the night.
While I clean up, her daughter tells me about her week.
They both say they wish I worked through the week.

I’d like to stay longer, but I’ve got two more rooms.
So I say my goodnights and push my cart along.

She’s on hospice. I know how this goes. I’ve been through this before.
But when she goes, I will miss her.
I’ll hope she finally gets that Bud Light she’s been asking for when she crosses over.
And I’ll think of her every time I prep that room for a new patient.

I believe in heaven
Because I watch people die
Death isn't what they told you
There's no light that fades from their eyes

No last words are spoken
From a heart that is at peace
The silence goes unbroken
No final breath perceived

Yet even in that quiet
As heart and lungs collapse
There is something clearly spoken
A resounding epitaph

The emptiness of body
Makes a claim of something more
What is now a mix of bonded cells
Was not just that before...

There was more to them than a beating heart
More than a chest's rise and fall
And if some part of them still lives
I know it's not stuck inside these walls

A soul has left the room.
A spirit took its flight.
The person that you knew escaped
While the body lost its fight.

So while I can only see a body
I believe there is something beyond
And as the optimist I am
I pray that heaven is where they've gone

There once was a gal named Alvina,
A registered nurse at a gyne-
     cological practice
     Who brought in a cactus
That jumped on a naked ******.

May her broken body peacefully return to earth
And her broken heart heal in the next place

What’s a measure of a valuable life?
dignity;
Or knowing when to ask for help?
Is it clutched in talons of the oppressor?
Is it living fast and dying young all for a story to tell?
How many should watch over your rotting corpse?
Because in the end all our blood pools black;
The ink of our heart’s quill desperate to get out