Christmas Magic: A Nurse's Christmas Story That'll Warm Your Heart

For most people, Christmas is carols and gingerbread and excited kids tearing open gifts, a day when the worries of ordinary life go quiet. Unless you are a nurse.

Bridgett pulls into the salted, snowy lot at Smyth Memorial Hospital with no holiday cheer to spare. Nothing about 20-degree weather, icy roads, short staffing, and every decent restaurant closed feels merry. Every year it is the same. She volunteers for a 12-hour shift on Christmas Day. She eats cafeteria ham and flaky mashed potatoes in the break room with the other nurses. She sings carols to her patients with a joy that does not quite reach her eyes. She laughs, encourages, and stays firm. She begs, pleads, smiles, and cries, but she does not give up. She works her hardest and saves lives.

This year is no different. She arrives on time, ready for the usual understaffed shift, and is not disappointed. "Bridgett! Back to play again this year? Don't you ever have anything better to do than spend Christmas here?" Christine, a friend on Smyth's Progressive Care Unit, is trying to lighten the mood. "Oh, you know I can never get enough of this place and all your smiling faces," Bridgett says with a grin. What her coworkers do not know is that she volunteers for the holidays because being home alone drags up painful memories. Caring for others on Christmas at least makes her feel useful and needed.

The shift starts like any other. Med rounds at 1000, 1200, 1400, and 1700. Wound care and the rest in between. It is quiet for a holiday, no consults, less staff. Her patients are pleasant; families come and go. The nursing staff has put out cookies and cider, and Bridgett makes a point of handing the goodies to visitors.

Through the day she connects with an elderly patient, Sue. Earlier, Sue had insisted her family go home and spend Christmas away from the hospital, trusting Bridgett to see to her every need. Her family left with promises to call that night, and Bridgett kept her word, stopping by often to check on her. Sue was special. At 92, she had seen it all, and she was wise, kind, and patient, the kind of woman Bridgett wished she could be. During one visit Bridgett admitted as much, and confided her struggles in the career and how she wished she could feel the Christmas magic everyone else seemed to love.

That was when Sue changed how Bridgett saw herself.

"True magic resides in the heart of those, like yourself, who serve others so sacrificially, not only on Christmas but all year long."

"Why, Bridgett," Sue said, "your compassion and your ability to love unconditionally is a special gift." Maybe, Sue offered, working the holidays and caring for others was giving Bridgett's own heart the time it needed to heal. After that, the mashed potatoes did not seem so flaky, and the carols came out with real joy.

Driving home after her 12-hour shift, Bridgett was smiling on Christmas Day for the first time in a long while. She had found her Christmas magic. People come into our lives for a reason, and our patients teach us as much as we teach them. Stay joyful. Keep your compassion. Make the best of the season, the way Bridgett did. Merry Christmas.