Oh Lord, all joking aside, a nurse of 30 years taking care of premature newborns... My friend, my brother, I love you, and I thank you from the absolute depths of my heart and soul and every FIBER of my being -- I was a premature baby whose life was saved on account of countless, tireless efforts made by the nurses who took care of me. In my fuzzy infant vision, I know I looked up at them, the nurses caring for my tiny, feeble body, and I saw God. Sure, call it "bad infant vision" if you would like to, but I don't think any profession on this earth is as God-like as those who embark into the profession of healthcare... those brave, incomparable souls who tend to the ill, the weak, the dying... who comfort us and heal us...
I am a proud (but TOLERANT!) Christian, and I've read my holy texts as well as those of many other sacred religions and spiritual belief structures from all over this humble floating rock we call Earth, and they all agreed on this one tenant of Faith; God comforts. God cares. God heals.
And I challenge you to refute me. I was taught ever since I was old enough to retain this information that God saves, and knowing what I know of the nurses who did just that for a tiny little baby with an APGAR reading of less than two, who was thought to have no chance, I will NEVER forget the nurses who believed in me, had faith in me, held me and whispered "grow, grow." They were angels. What else could they be? Who else would have sent them but God Himself?
My late father James offered the staff that saved me free car repairs at his self owned garage after I was pronoucned "thoroughly better and markedly improved." And God bless those selfless people, they turned him down on the offer. He said he had to repay them somehow, and one nurse literally looked right at him, honest to goodness confused, and asked "Thank us? For what?"
He knew the reason he got to waltz up and down the maternity ward that first week of April with his new baby girl, singing to her an old Al Jolson tune, that the only reason he had the gift of this moment of divinity with his daughter that it was only through the tireless work of the Madison General Hospital nursing staff of 1983 that he was allowed to have it.
From a premature baby who was believed in and cared for by such immense, wonderful and pure souls like you, you have my deepest thanks, but moreso than this, you have my love.
A. L. L. Pope
PS - The song my father sang to me, which the staff that saved me told him brought them to happy tears, was Al Jolson's 1920's hit, "Yes Sir, That's My Baby."