As a nurse I have meet a handful of nurses over the past 10 years who have truly exemplified the meaning of a holistic nurse. Gabe Gartman takes the cake. I have never witnessed the level of attention to detail, empathy, and legitimate holistic nursing care. Gabe Gartman has forever impacted my family. You see, my father has been in and out of the Critical Care Unit in Conway Regional many times over the past three years. The nature of his disease is acute, rapid, and often we have had those hard talks with physicians that go much like "he probably won't make it out of here this time, so spend some time with him." The CCU nurses were awesome and caring. Then Gabe walked into our lives. He has a nursing "sense" about him like none I have witnessed. He knew my father was hurting mentally and emotionally. Gabe took the extra time to sit with my dad and talk to him. Not just about his disease process, but his mental state, his spiritual state, and his worldly concerns with work and family. Gabe stopped me a few days after my dad was discharged and gave me something. It was in an envelope and he said "read this, but later." I took this back to my office and read into the first paragraph and couldn't continue reading. You see, Gabe had taken the time to sit with my dad and get to know him. He had written a four page letter to me detailing some special times dad and I shared, stories my dad had told him during their visit, and his concerns with leaving my mom behind. It took me a long time to read through the entire letter because it makes me cry every time! I cannot express how loving, gracious, and empathetic Gabe is. Truly, witnessing his actions, accompanied with the letter he wrote me (on his own accord) is the sweetest thing I have experienced and it gave me a new definition of holistic nursing. Gabe cared for my dad, but he cared for my family, too. He is as deserving as any nurse for the DAISY Award.