2nd Place Winner (2006 Nurse Essay Contest)

As a Nurse, What Legacy Do You Hope You Leave for the Future
by
Marisa Martinez, RN

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but  
     I can do something . And I will  not let what I cannot do
     interfere with what I can do."
-Edward Everett Hale    

There was a time in my life when I did not think about my legacy because  I was completely preoccupied with my own survival. As a single mother newly divorced with no money, no job and no education, I felt lost in hopelessness and despair. I saw no future for myself  and I was resigned to a life of dependency.  After a year of self pity and  projected blame, I found a reason to go on. I found a purpose and I created goals. I made a plan, I prepared myself and I worked obsessively to become a nurse. My inspiration was my child. My daughter saved my life and brought me to where I am now, in a responsible position where I can make a difference in children’s lives and their futures.

As a nurse, as a mother, and as a human being, I want to leave a generation of children who are healthy and successful because I taught them and their parents healthful habits, the care of chronic illnesses and the dangers of high risk activities. But just as important as their physical well-being, I hope to teach them, through my own story and example, that life is full of hope and that they have the potential to be anything they dream of. I don’t want them to remember my name or what I look like, I want them to remember the things I showed them about health, safety, and making a dream reality.

I know about dreams and I know about hopelessness. I grew up in a depressed area and I saw tragedy caused by violence and ignorance. I saw people rob and hurt each other out of desperation and I saw them kill themselves with drugs and alcohol. This is still the reality in the place I grew up and many of our patients come from areas like this. Many children do not have health insurance and their parents find it hard to navigate the public healthcare system until they come to the hospital with acute illness or injury. They have little or no preventative care and their education is affected by their poor heath. When they get ill, they do not see a doctor, they are treated with folk remedies that vary from marginally effective to outright superstition. I did not read this or hear this on the television, this is what I saw and how I lived.

I am not a psychologist  or a therapist. I believe in the effectiveness of behavioral specialties and I know that social science is a complex discipline best left to the experts. But I also know that children cry because they are sad or because they hurt. I know they cry because they are lonely or afraid. And I know there are times when I can ask them what’s wrong and help them feel better by listening and letting them express themselves. I also know they are curious about me. They want to know if I am married and if I have kids like them. These are the opportunities I have to cement my legacy.

I am very proud of my past because it is a story of hope and that is what many of our children lack. When children come to the hospital, they are often frightened because the environment is intimidating. This is how I grew up, with very little contact with the professional world and its institutions. I believed that everyone was poor and there was no other reality or possibility that I might achieve anything in my life. I know exactly what many of our children feel and I know what medicine they need. They need to feel comfortable and they need to know that they are safe. They need to see smiling faces and hear singing. They need to know that people don’t just come to the hospital to die, which is what I always believed. Most important, they need to know that doctors and nurses were once children, that they were once afraid and that they are here because they once had a dream.

My brother is social worker who specializes in helping families get out from public assistance. In his office, he has inspirational posters and pictures of successful participants who have achieved independence. It was a proud moment in my life when he asked me if he could display my picture, my license and share my story with families he was trying to motivate. He explained that even though he had the same story, he thought my experience was more inspirational because what I did, I did for the love of a child, my daughter. That’s when I knew what I wanted to do, where I wanted to work, and what I wanted for my legacy.

Adults need their bodies healed to return to their worlds. At Childrens Hospital I have, not only the opportunity to help heal children’s bodies, but their futures. The fulfillment of my legacy would be that one day a young woman would step up to the podium to give the valedictorian speech for her medical school and say " I would like to thank my family and all the people who supported and inspired me, especially a nurse I met when I was in Childrens Hospital once. She had a face like mine and she came from a place like me and she said that she was once sad like me. But she also said that my bones would not stay broken and that my heart would become strong. She told me her story and she said that it would also be my story one day. I believed her and it became real. I only wish I remembered her name."