A nurse’s grief – It is OK to cry

My computer screen became a blur as my eyes filled with tears. I knew that the e-mail in front of me would have an impact on my life forever. It was just a brief message that I never, ever expected. We had been taught as student nurses, many years ago, by a Nursing Instructor that ‘a nurse may grieve, but must do so silently, because others depend on the nurse to be strong’. As a young nurse in the 1970s I held tightly to that rule, but over time, with years of experience, I no longer adhered to a rule I believed to be passionless and did not allow us, as nurses, to show our emotions to our patients and their families. I couldn’t because I saw such human suffering on a daily basis.

I remembered that Instructor on that day seven weeks ago when my tears fell freely, and I could no longer see the message my friend Debbie had sent from Nova Scotia, a province where I had lived for over thirty years. The simple message from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland and Labrador, from a nurse, eight years my junior, a special friend, a courageous woman, a talented comic, a nurse who cared for my son many years ago when he was hospitalized, with a serious illness, shocked me. Her touch was like a mother’s touch, and she loved my son as he loved her. We never forgot those awful days, and spoke of them often.

Now there was a message of four lines on my computer screen. Four lines that summed up my friend Debbie, four lines that told me it hurt her to know how her message would affect me. She knew me well enough to know the impact her news would have on me.

She had simply written, “Bonnie, this is a terrible way to tell you, but I am very sick. My preliminary diagnosis is Pancreatic Cancer. I have lost all hope and live in a world of pain. I hate to tell you like this but your need to know. Love, Debbie’.

I received that message on May 3, 2006. It left me in a state of sadness and confusion. I needed to do something to help her. After the initial shock I mobilized my network of friends, nurses and mothers, firemen and sales clerks, and anyone I knew well, and asked them to send a message occasionally to Debbie, just to let her know that she had support. My contacts came through with a storm of wonderful messages for her, notes of support and prayer. Debbie was amazed that so many people would do this, when in fact they did not even know her except through me.