My family and I want to express our gratitude from the bottom of our hearts.
We get it. Your job is strenuous and exhausting, and probably just sometimes down-right awful. You work long hours, away from your families. You sacrifice your time for a whole lot of people who are crabby and don’t have the words thank you in their vocabulary.
But I hope you know, and understand just how much we appreciate each and every one of you who touched my grandmother's life.
It’s crazy how people’s paths cross, don’t you think? When my grandmother walked into your care, none of you knew her. Yet in her final days we were on a first name basis, asking about each others lives, and feeling the same sense of pain, because you too were losing someone who you’d grown a hope for, maybe even a love.
I can’t tell you how much happiness you gave her in her final time here with us.
She could talk endlessly about my sisters and I to all of you, but to us, she’d talk just as much about all of you. She’d tell us about you all, and the things you said to her that day, or the families you’d spoken so much about. You made her feel loved, you made her feel comfortable, and cared for.
My family fought her whole battle with her, step by step, hand in hand. You know that.
Thank you for all the nights you let us stay a little too far past visiting hours, thank you for the nights you unlocked the door so our family could be full and together, thank you for letting our dog in so my grandmother could smile, thank you for not yelling at my sisters and I when we took my grandma on “wheelchair races,” thank you for providing an extra wheelchair so we could actually race.
Thank you for the hope you radiated to not only my grandmother, but to us as well. Thank you for telling us to go home and get some rest. Thank you for staying by her side when we were not there. Thank you for being the individual amazing people you each are, because this was not easy, but having a team of nurses like you made it possible to withstand.
We put all of our trust in each of you, we felt comfortable enough to go home and sleep because we knew she was in the hands of you all. We knew if her kitty fell, you’d tuck it back under her arm. We knew if her pillow fell you’d lay it next to her beautiful hairless head. We knew you’d be us when we weren’t around.
They say that nurses touch a life each and every day. Please don’t lose sight of that.
Maybe you didn’t get to experience my grandmother's life, but how beautifully tragic is it that we got to experience the end together? How lucky was she to receive the care and support you all gave her in her final days? Please understand how much that means to our family.
I know that no thank you could ever repay what you’ve done for my family and I but thank you. Truly, and entirely, thank you.