Unsung

Every day I am confronted with the reality of mortality. One minute someone can be filling their lungs with air, conversing with you and engaging in this life and then within a small space of time they can be gone. Their body remains, an empty shell, a reminder of a life lived but they are no longer there and as the warmth from their once life filled body goes cold, so the reality of what has happened sinks in. It’s clinical. The heart stopped. They are gone. And yet, it’s so much more. Each person has so many stories, so many memories. As I walk through the wards I am constantly struck by the multitude of ‘life’ that exists within those corridors. Ironic? Perhaps. Death is so evident and yet as I look into the elderly man’s eyes or assist in the transfer of a sweet old lady I am so aware of the lives which they have lived. They were once held in the arms of a mother; they once stood on the steps of a school, daunted by what lay ahead, and they once fell in love for the first time. They have cried, they have laughed and they have lived more than any of us could imagine. So here’s to the unsung men and woman I work with every day. When you have no one to share your memories with and no one to reminisce with about days gone by I trust that the smile on a friendly face or the touch of a loving hand will remind you that you are still living and that the life you have lived is a life celebrated.