Author: Wounds and Wisdom

It was a warm beginning—

Soft and honey-colored like the first blush of dawn.

The sky wore a gentle smile,

The birds sang lullabies to the wind,

And the waves, tender and slow, whispered stories to the shore.

It felt like something out of a daydream—

A soft-spoken miracle no one dared to disturb.

It was everything you’d ever wished for

In the quiet corners of your heart.

Solitude, yes—but not the lonely kind.

The kind that wraps itself around you like a quilt.

The kind that breathes with you.

You could hear your thoughts clearly,

And they were kind.

But slowly, so slowly you almost didn’t notice—

The waves began to shift.

Tiny ripples turned to restless tides.

The breeze that once hummed a lullaby

Learned to howl.

And still, you told yourself,

“This is fine. It’s only weather.”

The boat, once steady, began to creak.

A song of warning in wooden groans.

Birds stopped their melodies,

Perhaps flown to safer skies.

The sea, no longer soft-spoken,

Roared with teeth bared and salt-flecked fury.

And one day, without ceremony,

The boat broke.

Snapped clean in half—

A jagged, splintering silence

Where something once whole had been.

All the dream-drenched days before,

Swallowed.

There was nothing left but floating debris

And the memory of sunlight.

The kind you almost doubt was ever real.

It was the beginning,

The middle,

And the end—

All folded into a single, trembling heartbeat.

A story told in salt and splinters,

In birdsong lost to the wind.

And even now,

If you listen closely,

You might still hear the waves

Whisper how it all once was.

Florence Nightingale once said, “Nursing is an art; and if it to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion.” In choosing this career, this path, we did not just choose a profession.

We chose a purpose. A life-long responsibility. But, in a world full of challenges, where caring is often easier said than done, where it is often more than we expect, why do we really choose to care?

I would like to think that we care for a purpose. It is the carative process of everything that makes us nurses. We define our career by being the person who will give care. Every skill we master and every lesson we learn equips us to comfort, to support, and to heal. According to Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring, nursing as a profession, emphasizes the importance of the nurse-patient relationship and caring is the central focus of nursing practice.

What is the next reason? For me, it is we care because of hope. In our arms, our patients find comfort, they find safety. We envelope ourselves to them to make them feel that they do not have to be scared. In our embrace, they find a reason to keep going.

Lastly, I would like to think that we as nurses are resilient. Times have changed and we evolved with it. There have been numerous times where we found ourselves in the front lines.

And even in the end, we fought. Hard, fulfilled with determination to finish what has started.

We chose to care not just because we can. But because it is a calling. It is because we

know that it will save a life.

I want to leave you with one thing – let us all carry that purpose with us at all times.

Because nursing – this is more than just a profession. It is a calling.