A Life Well Lived

Merril retires soon.  To say she is looking forward to it would be an understatement.  It is not like she has not enjoyed where she is, but understandably to me enough’s enough.
Merril is a nurse.  An RN or Registered Nurse.  She has worked for years in the hospital in which she was born.  Right now she is working in “healthy hearing.”  That is where they check babies ears.  Most pass.  Some fail.
I like my wife being a nurse.  I wonder if her response to me of “someone will come” though is appropriate.  Also she says that will be $50 if I ask her a question.  I reckon she is a good no nonsense nurse.  She has a great sense of humour, but when something needs doing she gets in and does it.  She has looked after me really well.  Not that I need it cause I’m tough.  Someone asked the question, “why is it guys in the movies, can be involved it a huge fight and take all sorts of punishment, but wince when a woman is tending to a cut?”
Merril said something today I found really interesting.  Right now her work involves babies.  It has not always been so.  She looked after old people at one stage.  What she said that I found interesting is, scratch the surface and so often these people have interesting stories.  I can see an old person, and forget they had a life that encapsulated so much.  One lady she had looked after had been a journalist.  Ghandi had given her something.  A guy was an Evangelist who was into weight lifting.  The Post did a story on him. Another person was a famous boxer.
Then there are the seemingly everyday people.  I say seemingly, as I am unsure if there is such a person.  To me, we all live extraordinary lives.  Probably the saddest ad I have seen on tv, was a guy getting a delivery.  He was so old and slow he did not get to the door in time, before the delivery person left.
Age to me is a clever disguise.  I think of my dad, on what turned out to be his deathbed.  He was being tended by a caring nurse.  No one would have known his amazing story.  I think of a friend’s dad.  No one would have known he had been a policeman who had been shot at, and looked after a jail.  I think my mum’s story was pretty incredible, but then I’m biased.
Everyone has a story, and everyone needs to be treated with respect.  Some deserve it, and some don’t, but I feel my role is only to treat them well.