A longer than usual staff training meeting rolled up part of our nursing shift, and made us two hours late before we started. We did a quick report on the residents, and counted the narcotics, and after I checked with the aides about our work plan, I stocked the medicine cart with cups and things, and started pushing it down the long hall.

At the nursing station, doctors or their assistants filled what space was there while reviewing charts, while I silently hoped they wouldn't need to write many new orders. When one of them whose handwriting is hard to read began gathering up his things, I parked the cart, and hurried to where he was, so he could explain what he'd written. Because he's more approachable than some, we bantered a moment, and I was relieved not to have to guess at what he wanted for his patients.

When the nursing station cleared, seven overstuffed charts waited for time I was already short on. I checked the new orders, and thankful none of them required immediate action, kept giving pills and other medicines, and pushed the cart farther down the hall.

On almost any nursing home unit the people there have varying needs I'm not completely convinced can be found in the medical book, Gray's Anatomy. A lady pedals her wheelchair always quite slowly, looking here and there it seems, for nothing in particular, or does she go at that snaily pace only to use up time that seems to her to only grow. I realize she needs someone, almost any willing soul, to talk to.

But I'm so far behind, and don't want to work overtime to get it done. The winding drive from here is scarey enough if I leave before midnight. But when the shift grows to one o'clock in the morning, the roads are dark, and I'm about the only driver on them.

The lady keeps finding something, anything, to create conversation. I'm a little irritated, not with her; because I'm so so stretched. She disappears down a hall for a moment, then before I can give meds to another patient, is at my side again. To be polite, I ask how she is, and she kind of mumbles, "Oh, I'm all right", but her ruffledvoice is not convincing.

Besides feeling crunched from the work load, my brain needs peaceful relief, or at least a short break once in a while. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to be here. But I am, and the work must be done.

I look at her again, and realize this is how it's been for this lady who for years had a life, and now she doesn't, and almost nobody takes time to let her tell them about it. Many times CNA's, the nurses aides, have confided that for a while they wanted to become nurses, but after seeing how little time nurses spend with the patients, they decided not to.

Making sure it's locked, I set the the med cart brake, and turn to her."Tell me again how you are tonight." I nod my head, as in "yes", and wait. She replies that a son of hers is on a long trip, and she's worried about him. That he's almost sixty years old and has traveled a lot doesn't matter. When you're as lonely as she is, even a concern is some kind of comfort. I let her tell me how she wishes she could call him, and not knowing what to say after that, I grasp the obvious, and ask if she's made many trips.

That tiny gleam in her eyes I had noticed days ago trys to shine a little. "Oh yes, my husband and I used to go lots of places, but not any more." "He died" At that, I am thinking If I'm to help her feel better, I can't let her drift off into regret, so I quickly say, "Where, where did you go ?" She smiles a little at the question, and almost whispers, "Hawaii, ut it was long ago." And true to people rooted in the Depression era, she begins telling me how expensive it was, even back then.

For a moment her memory was of happier times, and I can't let her bog into sadness again. I ask her anything I can think of about the islands, and suddenly she's describing what must be a memorial for the start of World War II.

She describes rows and rows of crosses. "Our Sailors died deep down in their ships. They never could get their bodies out." "That's why they put up those crosses, to remember them." As she trys to explain and describe every detail of this well known start of World War II, in her long and drawn out way, I see a reflection of myself. and understand what a son once tried to tell me: "Get to the point Mom, or you'll run off whose listening."

"Have you been to Hawaii?" Her question brings me out of myself. No, I haven't", I admit, and realize I am whispering, like she's doing. "You should go sometime." Her eyes don't look so sad now. And though I'll be catching up on the work later, I don't mind, as before. I make a promise to myself: Until my boss insists otherwise, from now on I am sqeezing out some time for my patients to talk.

Another one, a feisty charmer, projects an image that reflects hard living. She has mentioned that her people came from a far away place, ending up in some rusty dust filled mining town. But until tonight I've not taken time to hear even five minutes of what's important to her, recounting a history of a glorious time she lived in.

These people's lives only sample the mine of living that my patients experienced. But it's not their histories alone that matter. They need to know someone cares enough to hear them tell it.