I worked with Nick Wiesemeyer during the death of a gentleman having emergency cardiac surgery. The elderly couple came into the ER the morning of the patient's death. The patient had a ruptured aortic aneurysm that the surgeon could not repair. When the patient died, the physician asked the nurse to call spiritual care. As the chaplain, I went to the surgery area. Nick, the nurse, was awaiting my arrival. He told me that the patient's wife was alone in the waiting room. Nick didn't want her to be alone during and after she got the news of her husband's death.

Nick, the physician, and I walked to the waiting area to give the wife the bad news. Needless to say, the wife was devastated. Nick sat directly in front of her and hugged her. By this time, their children had begun to arrive. Nick then told me that he was going to go back to the surgical room to clean the patient and place him in a viewing area so the wife, along with the rest of the family, could see him. I wondered to myself how he was going to clean the gentleman, knowing the patient had bled so much during Surgery.

A short time later, Nick came back to get us to escort the wife and family to the recovery area, which was used as a viewing room. The wife could barely walk. Nick held her up as we walked from the surgery waiting area all the way to the recovery area. When we walked into the room, she fell on her husband's body, crying desperately. Nick stood over her as she cried. I couldn't believe how clean the gentleman's body was. Nick had really presented the patient well. The patient was lying in bed and looked like he was sleeping. He had chairs and tissues surrounding the bed. Nick handled the body of the patient with such reverence.

After the wife calmed down, I learned she had worked here at Ascension St. John for 24 years as an RN. I asked her if she knew Nick when she worked here. She said, "No." I said, "Really? I thought the two of you knew each other by the way he walked with you and hugged you." She said, "No, I just met him today. Can you believe he was so nice?" I was so proud to watch Nick grow from the clinical, busy nurse I worked with in the adult ICU many years ago to this young man treating this lady with such kindness and respect.