A reminder...

This morning, on your ride home from work, you told me that you’d gotten some feedback at the end of a tumultuous shift that, while useful, left you feeling a little sad. I listened as you told me the story of what had happened, then the feedback you’d been given. At the end, though, where you heard the feedback as the centerpiece to the story, all of which, I should add, was very situationally specific, what I heard, as I always do when you tell me your work stories, was how you brought two new lives into the world, and saved a third. 

When I pointed that out, you acknowledged it, but I got the sense that the enormity of that achievement didn’t quite land. In conversation, it’s easy enough to shrug off praise, but, thankfully, here you can’t stop me from reminding you just how amazing you are. So I will.

In professions like yours, where so much is often at stake, it can be very easy to get lost in the quest for perfection, because a misstep can literally mean the difference between life and death. It can become far too easy to focus only on the mistakes and gloss over the other side of the coin. What you do, because of the aforementioned stakes, makes the fact that you succeed nearly every day an absolutely astonishing thing. The pressure of it all can blind us, at times, to just how true that fact is, so let me remind you. 

You ease pain, both physical and emotional, at what is likely one of the most frightening moments of those for whom you care’s lives. You use expertise, intuition, experience, and, most of all, the compassion and kindness in your beautiful heart to carry them through it all. And you help to bring tiny, fragile souls into this world. While I appreciate your naturally humble nature, as one whose job it is to see you clearly and speak that truth, let me say that you, my sweet girl, are, again, truly amazing. Please never forget it, though, if you do, I will always be here to remind you. I love you, with all my heart and soul, and I am so proud of you, every day.