Good Morning Sara, I’d like to share with you, this beautiful letter that one of our physicians, Dr. Dimartino, sent to the CEO, after losing his father, recently. I know how you like to read and write, and I was so moved by his words.

“I compose this letter in gratitude to the staff of Chowan Hospital for their gentle and generous care of my father during his recent illness, and especially to the staff of the Skilled Nursing Unit, in whose compassionate hands he was fortunate to be in the days of his waning and death.

How surprised I was, after all the years I’ve worked in hospitals and nursing homes– popping in and out, writing a note, barking a little — to see as I sat with my father day by day the quiet movements of the place, barely noticed before. I received a powerful education in Christianity watching the aides and nurses as they quietly, unobtrusively made their rounds; turning the bedridden at two hour intervals, changing soiled diapers, bathing sallow wasted bodies. Each of these women has her own story; many of those stories are more tragic than the one my father and I were enduring, yet they performed this humblest work in love and compassion, their hands moving in self-forgetting peace and joy, drawing strength from their work. What an incomparable gift, to have the Lord’s hands.”

Continue reading “Gift of Encouragement and Healing”