a rare day in june

Every year on the first day of June, I think of parts of a poem I had to memorize years ago in school:

And what is so rare as a day in June

if ever come perfect days

And heaven follows earth if it be in tune

And over it softly her warm ear lays

Whether we look or whether we listen

We can hear life murmur and see it glisten

Today as I started my run on a beautiful first day of June, this lovely poem once again came to my mind. I was feeling sad for a reason unknown to me – sad enough to feel tears go down my sweaty face at about mile 3 of my ten mile run. Someone once told me that if you feel inexplicably sad, look at your calendar.

I realized that tomorrow would have been my 38^th year at my former job. On June 2^nd 1975 I walked up the hill to the first day of what would be my lifelong career. I was 21 years old and a long way from home but I had my first nursing job. 35 1/2 years later, on January 7^th 2011, I closed the door to my office and to my career that had defined me and supported our family – a career to which I gave all I had.

I joined a few other women who, like me will not be remembered for very long for what they may have done during their tenure. The first person I am aware of who had my job was a lady named Yuki. I never met her but saw her obituary about a year ago. I know she had been there because there was evidence of her when I first started in the ER in 1976 – hand written memos, old schedules with her name on them. I don't know if she ever came back for a visit but I never saw her. I am sure she made a mark while she was here and influenced the growth of both the department and the few nurses who worked there at the time. I wish someone could have told me about her. I felt sad that her obituary did not mention her work in the very early years of this ER. When I first started in the ER my boss was a lady named Jan. She left a few years after I started. She was a strong clinical nurse and often brought homemade bread to the staff when she worked the afternoon shift. Then there was Sharon who did not stay long – long enough to have one of the plastic surgeons remove a mole from her nose right there in the ER , and then Sandy who is still my good friend. They all shaped the future in their own way. And then me. I kept my job for many years, growing into it and finally, growing out of it.

It was a good career and I learned a lot both about myself and other people. I learned that people aren't always honest and that despite what someone said on one of my evaluations, communication or lack thereof, is still the root of most problems. I learned that I enjoyed mentoring and encouraging people into doing things they did not think possible. I did a lot of things I didn't ever think were possible...like speaking at national conferences and writing textbooks.

My leaving was not as I had planned but maybe it never is for anyone. It was the right thing in many ways but it was painful. I was asked, “What do you want your legacy to be?” While I know that after a while, I will be forgotten, I hope I am remembered for loving my staff, and for being encouraging and positive. I want to be credited with instilling a sense of pride in the nurses and being ahead of my time by creating professional portfolios and demanding a dress code so people could know who the nurses were. I want to be remembered for contributing to the entire body of pediatric ER knowledge by participating in national committees and even developing a pediatric ER nursing class. I hope I am remembered for helping staff to improve and not writing them off until I knew I wasn't doing them any favors by keeping them. Finally, I hope I gave people permission to take care of themselves first and their families. You can't really take care of others if you don't take care of yourself. I sure don't regret my mornings of getting up early to run before work. No matter what happened that day, I could smile to myself and say “yeah but at least I ran this morning”.

My life is good. I love getting up in the morning and running when I want and lingering over coffee and the newspaper. I can spend more time with the people I love. Yes, I miss being involved in making a difference but I will find other ways to do it. I still have a lot to give.

I am grateful that I can run and run and run and feel sad and then when I get home the sadness is gone.

I looked up the rest of the poem that I quoted in the beginning. This is how it ends.

Joy comes grief goes, we know not how;

Everything is happy now

Everything is upward striving

Tis easy for the heart to be true

As for grass to be green or skies to be blue

Tis for the natural way of living

Who knows whither the clouds have fled?

In the unscarred heaven they leave not wake

And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,

The heart forgets it's sorrow and ache

The soul partakes it's seasons youth

And the sulfurous rifts of passion and woe

lie deep 'neath a silence peer and smooth

Like burnt out craters, healed with snow.

From James Russel Lowell's “And what is so rare as a day in June”