Unlike previous years, there are little or no postings on social media encouraging comments from “friends” on what they want to ask Santa to bring them. It is almost as if making public one’s heart’s desires will some weird way influence the events of 2022 to do the exact opposite.
It also might be that we do not know how the naughty and nice list is being defined these days. What is nice? Who knows what to say about naughty? We all know that Santa is watching but we hope from a safe distance, wearing a mask and has made plans to not drink from millions of cups of milk. Talk about a super-spreader event.
I must admit I sat down the other day and wrote a letter to the guy in red. I told him that while he hopefully knows who has been naughty or nice, he needs to have a new category. The category of showing up. You see, I want him to know that you showed up.
I am not sure he is aware of what showing up means now. I feel a sense of urgency that he understands that showing up has a new meaning. If you look at the definition in a dictionary, it states, to be clearly visible, to arrive and to be present. I am pretty sure that is what he thinks, to look for people that were visible and present. I even envisioned that he would argue that those people would be on the nice list. I wanted him to know that those who showed up this last year did so much more than that.
I wrote to him that showing up has meant putting oneself in the line of fire with an invisible enemy that keeps changing the rules of engagement. Showing up has meant exposing oneself to the totality of the loss of life. Experiencing the sheer pain of grief. Showing up has meant to deny oneself acknowledgment of the emotional exhaustion that is continually present.
Showing up has meant summing up the courageous strength to face each day, meet the demands and say, “I have given my best for what was on today’s menu of challenges and needs.”
Through a 25-slide PowerPoint presentation that I embedded into my letter, I presented to him that “showing up” deserves acknowledgement. Slide 20 exhibited the gifts that those in this new category deserve. Showing up needs to be given the greatest gifts of humanity. The gifts of gratitude, compassion and love.
Gratitude for every second that healthcare providers have given to their profession this last year and every year.
Compassion for them for all they have seen and experienced. Acknowledging their humanness.
Love, well love is the greatest gift they have given us, and we can give back to them.
I wasn’t expecting a return answer as I know this time of the year is busy for him. But answer he did, and he wrote the following:
“Ah, I see what you are saying about those who work in healthcare. They are so much more than either naughty or nice. You are right they need their own category. I see that they are called heroes, that is true. Yet, they are more than heroes. They are truly the best of the best. I will leave the gifts of gratitude, compassion and love for them. “
“Tell them to look for it not under the tree but in the eyes of those they encounter.
It is there for them to see. It is there.”
Martie L. Moore, MAOM, RN, CPHQ, has been an executive healthcare leader for more than 20 years. She has served on advisory boards for the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel and the American Nurses Association, and she currently serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board at the University of Central Florida College of Nursing and Sigma. She was honored by Saint Martin’s University with an honorary doctorate degree for her service and accomplishments in advancing healthcare.
The opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News guest submissions are the author’s and are not necessarily those of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News or its editors.
