Michael Todd facilitated a reunion between mother and daughter while they were both being cared for on the same nursing unit. Both mother and daughter were moved to tears by his kindness. Below is his description of the events that transpired. He exemplifies compassionate care for his patients.

As nurses, we encounter all walks of life regularly. The movement between this life and the next becomes too normal for us, that we forget that to the world outside the hospital walls or the scary time when we become the patient rather than the healer, a hospital represents the presence of eternity potentially becoming a reality. It’s even ironic to me that being an avid journalist for years, for some reason, I did not write a single word of this particular event until I was asked to retell the story. Maybe because it was so subtly impactful that I have it stained on my mind. I’m not quite sure. This particular story, in my mind, is a kind of love story that cannot be fabricated. As a father of two beautiful girls and a gorgeous wife and mother, I have a hard time separating the impact of this reunion from the mother-daughter relationship I experience on a daily basis in my household. The relationship between a mother and daughter is precious, full of love, strife, heartbreak, and warmth. It’s a weird yet beautiful bond. It’s an all over the place box of emotions tossing to and fro at sea. So I don’t know what this relationship growing up was like, but I do know I have some hint.

This was a story I only briefly knew, but a tale in a larger story with a lasting impact. This is what I recall from that day. I assumed care of an elderly woman. The full nature of her admission I don’t recall in detail fully except that she had fallen at home and had sustained a moderate goose egg to the right side of her head that bruised most of the right side of her face. She was a sweet, kind, and pleasant lady, often forgetful, needing frequent reorientation to current happenings. She could recall her past fairly well though as we talked about her life. It was reported to me that her plan of care was to be discharged to a rehab later that day and that randomly her daughter was also in our unit. The plan for her daughter was to go home with hospice that same day.

So the day began as usual. All necessary nursing tasks were accomplished first, in order to keep from becoming behind in the day. I asked my patient, the mother, what she knew about her family today. She recalled a few events, but mainly that she believed her daughter was sick, but somewhere she believed to be in another state, possibly Montana. I then gently informed her that actually, her daughter was there as a patient herself, only a few doors down from where she was. Her response to this was immediate. “She’s here? I can’t see her like this. I need to clean up. I’m in a gown, I’m not ready. My hair is a mess” as she straightened up in bed attempting to look past me to the mirror. I assured her that she looked amazing. We combed her hair and agreed that the best way to see her daughter was to simply stay comfortable resting in bed. We moved mother to join her daughter in her daughter's, facing each other in bed, PureWick and all, as discreetly as possible. The reunion of two souls is one I will never forget, a very moving and touching moment, that I have a hard time recounting without strong emotions. The moment we moved the mother into the daughter’s room came with a flood of emotion, smiles, and tears, both of them with arms outstretched reaching toward each other. Their hands embraced in a physical touch of warmth. A 60-year-old daughter with cries of “Momma, Momma” just as my daughters at ages 8 and 10 do with my wife in an embrace, is a difficult moment to forget without tears. It was at that moment that I truly realized we had, as a team that day, done something more than medicine could ever have done. We reunited two souls that day. This was definitely a moment beyond all moments for me, not a coincidence, but a divine reunion that possibly might never happen on this earth again. The two of them shared several hours together talking. The nurse for the daughter, was able to assist her to capture a beautiful photograph of them together in that moment, on the daughter's phone. I’ll probably never see that photo physically again, but that’s quite ok. I have it etched permanently and forever on my mind, a photo of all photos.

Then the day proceeded. Mother had to go back to her room for various medical tasks. We made sure that when the transport team picked her up, she was able to stop by one last time to say her goodbyes with a final embrace. To my knowledge, the daughter left for home the next day with family, on hospice care, but not without a photo painted on the screen of her phone, to have and cherish, to remember that day on 4 West where she was able to reunite with her Mother!