It's All In The Details

Little did I know how big one person’s life could be

- Roberta Messner

MARGIE WAS MY first patient as a home-based nurse. She was paralyzed from the neck down and terminally ill. Every evening I went to her house for a few hours of care. I bathed her, changed her linens and administered her medications, but I often wished I could do more for Margie herself.

She can’t leave the house and has trouble speaking, I thought one December evening as I dried her after her bath. With no family in the area, she had few people in her life—mostly the ones she saw on TV. Just flickering images, I thought. More like background noise than people.

I reached for a bottle of her favorite lotion off the shelf and massaged it into her crepe paper-thin skin. Margie was delighted by the simplest kindness. Her attitude reminded me to keep things in perspective. The earring I’d lost while working or a run in a new pair of stockings wasn’t important enough to think twice about. Not compared with the frustrations Margie had to deal with.

When I arrived the following evening, Margie was waiting by the front window. She had something to tell me. “Okay, Margie,” I said, taking off my coat. “I’m listening.”

Communicating anything complicated took a while, but Margie always got her message across. “You want to make cookies?” I repeated. Not just cookies, Margie explained, but a special recipe for traditional Hanukkah cookies from her childhood. “I’m not much of a cook,” I admitted, “but I’ll give it the old college try.”