a long night's journey into day.....

As I do my rounds each hour, checking on my patients, the light breaking through the darkness brings hope for the shift to soon be over and to be home sleeping in my bed.

It seems that people have an affinity to leave or enter this world at the time that the light is fading or approaching. I am not saying all, but there seems to be that trend. So as morning approaches, during that quiet serene time, you will check on that tenuous patient much more closely, to be sure that God has not reached down and taken them home.

Or on the other end of that spectrum, in the hustle of the delivery room, as the light breaks forth with all its strength, then too the new life will be breaking through to draw its first breath and cry its loud cry. It is truly a magical time of day.

During this time of year the sun stays up until almost 11:pm, by 4:30 am, the sun is already peeking its nose in between the curtains.

In the dead of winter though, I see no light. I come to work in the dark and go home in the dark.....with no light in between. I go to bed as the sun is starting to peek out, and by the time I rise for work again, the darkness has already fallen. Is is any wonder so many in my profession suffer from various forms of depression. To rarely see the light of the sun is such an awful thing.

And now, as my shift is approaching its end, I must go and start my morning work, so that I may go home and sleep.....and put behind me yet another long night's journey into day.......