We have had a busy few weeks. We have recently had much sadness in our family and this weekend an aunt, who has been left with no direct children at 84, was admitted to hospital. Her lovely best friend (oh to have such long lasting friendships), and the family, have been doing our best with rounds of visiting, making sure she had things to talk about, and more importantly perhaps, eat; a round of prawn sandwiches on special request, a lovely fruit salad, a fruit jelly studded with raspberries. Another friend gave her a lovely leg massage. We are all generally trying to make her feel better.

But this blog isn’t about her care it’s about my instinctual response to being at the bedside again.

I just feel I know what to do to care. I instinctively understand how to make someone feel comfortable or perhaps, more importantly, when they are not. I knew that she needed her own things, that food when you feel poorly comes in small packages and when tears are close, it’s time to take a hand.

There was another lady in the bed beside us. She clearly couldn’t see very well so was often calling out but once you got close she could focus. Her hearing was better on one side than the other and she likes tea. I couldn’t stop myself going to help her. We didn’t talk for long but in a few minutes I learnt that she too had lost her son at 60, she liked to garden and grew tomatoes and she regretted some things about her life. I pulled her tea nearer and opened a bar of chocolate for her that we had brought.  It was ironic that we were interrupted politely by a nurse who closed the curtains and did a memory test with her in a very loud voice.  I know she doesn’t know what year it is.

Today I suggested our aunt had a shower – she looked at me and said ‘Can I?’ We went to the horrible institutional shower room and I handed her the nice shower gel and shampoo I had brought. I asked her if she wanted me to wait outside having sorted a seat for her in the cubicle. ‘No!’ she exclaimed ‘You have seen all this many times before’ and I guess she was right. I know she enjoyed her shower and we put on skin lotion and hand cream afterwards. It is the first time she has been in her own clothes for 4 days!

The thing about the last few days is I strongly felt my urge and instinct to care. This wasn’t just because it was family; it was more than that. I know I only had one person to help and that I had the luxury of time but the satisfaction I felt was immense.  I feel drawn to it, as if it fits somehow.

So, I suspect, this weekend I have been reminded of the meaning of ‘vocation’ the strong draw, almost a summons, to occupation. Sometimes I wonder if I’m kidding myself, if perhaps I have just been lucky to find something I like to do so much, but this weekend has reminded me that its more visceral than that.

As I was leaving the ward the two ladies in the beds opposite said to me ‘you were lovely with that lady – you should be a nurse’ and I smiled, and said ‘thank you’, after all what a huge compliment and wondered to myself what had dragged me away from the bedside all those years ago.