My father has had a difficult hospitalization. The nurses I’ve talked to told me about his confusion, difficulty moving his arms and legs, and incontinence every time I’ve spoken with them. In the rare instance I am not able to be at the hospital after work, I call to talk to the nurses working overnight and get updates on his care. When I called to tell the nurse caring for my father that I would not be able to visit that evening, I was expecting, like other nights, to be told she would call me back with updates after she finished medicating her patients.

However, Kristin was sitting in my dad’s room at the time I called helping him eat dinner. She immediately knew I was her patient’s daughter from the note I left him on his whiteboard and said, “I’m actually in the room with him right now!” A first for our family. She put me on speaker phone so that I could say hi to my dad, and he told me that since about 7:30, she had been sitting in his room helping him eat. It was well past 8:00 when I called. They were watching his favorite show Shark Tank and talking about how much he loved watching my brother and I play sports when we were kids.

In the morning I knew I had to visit the hospital before I went to work so that I could meet the nurse who took time out of her busy shift to actually sit with my dad, without rushing him through his meal, and talk to him. My dad was in such great spirits that he looked like a different person. He told me that in the middle of the night, he had a vivid nightmare and couldn’t tell if he was hallucinating, and called for help. Kristin again pulled up a chair, sat beside him, and held his hand as she helped to reorient him before tucking him back into bed. He cried big happy tears telling me that she did not rush him at all. She came to the room before introducing the daytime nurse to make sure my father didn’t need anything else on her shift and was surprised to see I was at the hospital so early.

We talked about how my dad’s night went and our mutual Taylor Swift Eras Tour experiences. She was positive and upbeat even after a 12-hour shift. In this age where all we hear in the media is nursing shortages and nursing burnout, and I have seen the effects on nursing care firsthand as the child of a man with chronic illness. It is so rare to see a nurse with the compassion and genuine love for her patients that Kristin has. I am so grateful that my father had the opportunity to be in her care.