A Return on Helping

Today I remembered a benevolent Christmas gesture a co-worker and I did a few years ago while we were working in the psych part of the ER. I don't know why this guy was with us but it doesn't really matter. He was there and in need. He kept calling family members and trying to get someone to come pick him up, but they were all impoverished. Even a twenty dollar bus ticket was out of the question. So my co-worker and I combined what money we had with us, and not surprisingly, it was enough for the ride to Columbia for Christmas. I had already brought him a jacket and pair of my husband's unworn shoes because he needed them, and he was - with gratitude - on his way. We were pleased with ourselves. Our helping him helped us. When I was a new nurse I learned this truism from one of the doctors. "When we nurture others, we nurture ourselves." At what I call "my day job," we have a clothes closet. Granted, not all patients come in needy but many do. Psychiatric illnesses seem to hit the poor and uneducated the most. They have had more tragedies and do not have the mental skills to cope. We, the staff, keep the closet stocked with our no longer needed clothes, and then we have them when a patient is in need. We just bypass Goodwill and give directly. Then when I see a patient proudly walking around in one of my husband's shirts, the ones with one stain that he won't wear anymore, I am entertained, but I also have a sense of pleasure. Being a nurse provides opportunities to make observable differences in people's lives in ways besides what we have been trained to do. And we are nurtured as a byproduct.