Kindness

We all know Florence Nightingale. Not many of us know Christie Watson, though. Not until I've read The Language of Kindness.

Her book recounts the story of her life as a nurse. And stories about her patients. Some of her stories will make your heart sing, but others will make you cringe. Christie retold her nursing career after 20 years in NHS hospitals. In a confessional style. Even it's often the junior nurses who tend to feel the most, as Christie herself admitted, she remains to own a tender heart after developing the senior level of thick skin.

Let me illustrate. I feel in awe of Christie Watson when she brought us a wondrous portrait of fourteen-year-old Aaron confined to bed, oxygen tubes inserted into his lungs stuffed by thick mucus of cystic fibrosis. Christie didn't tell Aaron's mum that Aaron would be fine. She'd never tell any relative that: she has learned her lesson. Because none of us really knows.

Christie simply searched inside herself for comforting words, helping the tired boy get ready for a heart-lung transplant. Christie was shattered by the experience of waiting for organ donation. When they were waiting, each second became a minute, each minute an hour. Days became weeks and months and years. When Aaron was waiting, time became shorter; he was getting nearer to the mortuary. A count down.

Christie rubbed cocoa butter onto Aaron’s dry knees, took away his Game Boy and swore to guard it with her life.

The heartbreaking coda came after Aaron woke up from the heart-lung transplant and recovered, enjoying much strawberry ice-cream as he wanted. Christie helped Aaron write a difficult letter to the mother of the boy who gave him his heart. The lines make us laugh: "Did your son like strawberry ice-cream?" And cry: "It's not fair that your son died so I can live. I absolutely promise I will never forget him."