08/01/2025
"When a Nurse Dies”
When a nurse dies,
the halls remember.
Not in echoes,
but in the hush
that settles over a place
once warmed by her presence.
When a nurse dies,
the beds whisper stories
Of hands that held,
of words that healed,
of moments she carried alone,
so others didn’t have to.
She didn’t wear armor,
but she went to war
against time, pain, fear, and death
and many times,
she won.
But now she lays still,
and for once,
it is we who stand by her bedside.
We who whisper “thank you.”
We who weep in the silence
she once filled with strength.
She didn’t leave the world quietly.
She left with the honor of the unseen,
the dignity of the overworked,
the grace of the forgotten heroine.
When a nurse dies,
it is not the end of her shift
It is the rising of her legacy.
In every pulse she steadied,
in every tear she caught,
in every “you’re not alone” she offered,
her spirit lives on.
So let us not mourn her in sorrow,
but in sacred awe.
Let us tell the world:
A light has gone out,
but its warmth remains.
In every nurse who stays late,
who holds hope like a fragile flame,
who walks in her footsteps
with trembling hands and open heart
she lives again.
She is not gone.
She is just on the other side of healing.
A place where alarms don’t beep,
and hearts never break.
So rest now, brave soul.
Your hands have done enough.
Your shift is complete.
And oh
what a shift it was.
~Unknown
