“YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY FROM TROUBLE, THERE AIN’T NO PLACE THAT FAR”

Doctors and nurses are extremely privileged to be instrumental in so many lives, to be included in the best and worst of times, to witness new beginnings and to be there at the end. 

Through the doors of any hospital comes all life, from the young and bewildered, to the old and tired. Some will just be experiencing a bump in the road that will slow them down momentarily. Afterwards they will pick up speed again and continue on their journey, a little delayed but none the worse for wear.

A palpable sense of lives changing forever, accompanies those who arrive through traumatic circumstances; they come attached to mental and physical pain, often accompanied by fear and hopelessness, or anger and disbelief. For some even just to live is an act of courage, when it would be so easy just to die.

When faced with adversity some people lash out at anyone and everything, and some withdraw inside themselves and become unreachable. All take time to find the strength needed to rally courage and develop bravery,

Courage does not always roar there are those who arrive hopeful and unprepared for the despair about to be thrust upon them, shock stuns them like a grenade, and they can barely find the strength to breathe. Surprisingly they don’t fall to the floor or shout and scream, beating their chests in anguish, and railing at the world.  Protecting those around them they somehow find fortitude and quiet dignity, already starting to gather courage for the fight ahead. De Poitiers wrote “Courage is as often the outcome of despair as of hope; in the one case we have nothing to lose, in the other everything to gain”.

Mental fortitude can be harder to find than physical courage as it often isn’t reactive and the decision to be brave has to be thought about and come to terms with. Mark twain wrote “It is curious that physical courage is common in the world, and moral courage so rare”. 

In the end we are all so much more than what can be measured and labelled, valour is not found in muscle it is found in soul and spirit and time after time we witness the  human spirit growing stronger under conflict.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced”. James Baldwin

Title quote from ‘Uncle Remus’.