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Hi everyone, welcome to Thanks for Being

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Here, a short weekly pod to remind

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us of the many essential and beautiful

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ways we affect one another. Every

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Sunday I'll read a submission from

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a listener, Kelly Corrigan-Wenders, could

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be wedding vows or a bat mitzvah

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toast, a eulogy, or a retirement speech.

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We believe this is probably the

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loveliest way to tap into our

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better selves and remember our highest

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values. We encourage you to

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share this podcast each week with one person

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you love, maybe someone you

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miss and need to bring closer, someone

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you want to feel your appreciation or

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admiration or both. This

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is Thanks for Being Here. This

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show is sponsored by BetterHelp. A

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lot of us spend our lives wishing we

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had more time, but the question is

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time for what? Like if you had an extra

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hour in your day, how would you use it? Maybe

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the best way to squeeze a

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special thing into your schedule is

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to actually find out what's important to

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It's convenient and flexible and suited to

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to get 10% off

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betterhelp, help.com/Kelly.

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This week's Thanks for Being Here is from me to

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some nurses I have known in my life.

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The word which derives from nourish

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means attend or minister.

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Attending is a fitting image. So

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for me minister has the right ring to it.

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Whichever works for you, there are things

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to be said about nurses. I

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studied a team of them,

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Jenna, Michelle, Meg, over

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several weeks one spring in and out

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of my dad's room as he set his heart

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right, pointed his soul upward,

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and listened to the prayer of his own

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breathing, as my friend Billy Collins

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put it. These

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nurse girls, so young or

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young-seeming, until they cracked me

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open with a bit of intuition, rotated

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my father, swept his

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hair off his forehead, deconstructed

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his glorious smile to clean and

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reset the bold rack of

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acrylic teeth that took center stage

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on his face. These

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girls are angels, Libby, he

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whispered to me before he died. We'd

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seen nurse magic before. He

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was his radiation gal drone who

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shared his birthday, me was

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my oncology nurse Catherine, whose job it

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was to fill me with a cherry

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red chemotherapy so toxic you

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can only ever take one course. And

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I knew nurses at Children's Hospital in

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Oakland. I'd been there with

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my daughter who had meningitis and

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again with a friend's son after

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an all-day operation to separate the

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plates fused in his skull.

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Later, solo, I went back with a

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notebook and a pen. I'd

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gotten curious about something I thought might best

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be explained to me by a nurse.

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I waited for my escort in the

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lobby, staring at the mural behind the

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chicken. It was a

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landscape photograph that obeyed the rule of

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thirds, a principle of composition I

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had learned in a one-night seminar at my

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local camera shop. The bottom

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was the city, the middle was

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clouds, the top third was blue sky.

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Whoever was in charge of lobby

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decorations had glued a small wire

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and mesh butterfly to the image

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high above the clouds. making

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me wonder if a creature so fragile

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could possibly survive at that altitude.

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I met Sandy first. She'd

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worked the front desk for 47

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years and could somehow call everyone

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darling without being remotely irritating. Then

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we ran into sister Bernice who had sat

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with her arm around me years earlier while

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my daughter had a spinal tap. She

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had the same sympathetic eyes and

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the same hairdo because God loves

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a bowl cut. She

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introduced me to Betty whose job

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it was to help parents bond

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with their newborns despite the circumstances.

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Skin to skin contact, Betty

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said, changes everything. Something

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I had recently explained in a

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wholly different context to my daughter.

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You know Betty said every parent looks

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forward to that first bath. But

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when the baby comes months early, you

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can see how scared they are to

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touch their own child. So

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we show them how to hold and comfort their

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baby. And when they finally

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make contact and the

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sense of ownership kicks in, it's

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like a merger happening before your

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eyes. Every

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summer a nurse named Pam jumps

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in. We have a preemie's

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reunion picnic. Apparently dozens

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of kids, some of whom weighed less

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than two pounds at birth, come

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back to celebrate their hardiness. Pam

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shows me a picture. She is

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shaded under the arm of a lanky boy

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with pimples. Size

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11 shoes, she brags. Things

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that happen here, the stuff

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we see, most people only

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know from Grey's Anatomy, someone

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rightly points out. It's

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humbling. Kim from Oncology

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says, the way lives

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change so suddenly, the way families

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learn to accommodate their new realities,

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these patients, they become more and more. remarkable.

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They become special. I

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asked Kim what's hardest for her. I

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can manage any wound, she said. It's

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the emotional stuff that gets me. The

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last nurse I talked to, Claire,

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runs palliative care like

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the angels who walked my

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father out of this life. Claire

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tells me that when they know death is imminent,

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they move the patient to a

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demedicalized place with no machines,

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no pick lines or feeding tubes so

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people can behold their loves untethered.

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I went to the nurses looking for some hope

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to see if I could find some value in

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suffering. I'm still working out

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the details, but it has something to

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do with a general

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softening, a far reaching clemency

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that I think Kim described best. Hierarchies

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are useless. Everyone has their own

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clean, their own grief and fragilities.

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Sooner or later, we are all

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patients. Sooner or later, we

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are all butterflies. So Claire,

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Daddy, Bernice, Derna, Catherine,

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Kim, this is dedicated

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to you and to

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all nurses who help us

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understand and even celebrate the

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very tricky condition of

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being human. Of

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course, I encourage you to share

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this with any nurses in your

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lives. I am sure that they

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are underappreciated writ large and

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maybe this could help them feel celebrated if

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just for a few minutes. Thanks

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everyone. We'll be back on Tuesday with another

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Kelly Corrigan wonders. From

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PRX.