Excerpt
Welcome back, Moon River. We missed you. Do you have big news
for us? Get ready for your debut on St. Francis tomorrow morning.
~ Curly & Moe.
Tyne chuckled. It would be good to see them after all this time –
Curly and Moe. Moe had written the note, but Curly would have had
her say in it.
On being assigned to the three-bed dorm on their first day of
training, the girls had quickly become fast friends, so much so that
they became known to their other classmates as The Three Stooges.
From there it was natural to assign nicknames to the group, Maureen
becoming Moe, and Carol Ann being dubbed Curly for her mass of
dark curls.
Tyne, however, forbade them to call her Larry. “I had a boyfriend
named Larry, so forget it.” When they learned she was named after
a river in England, she became known as Moon River, marring the
otherwise perfect connection to the comedy group, but satisfying the
bent of student nurses to give each other nicknames.
Tyne looked at the note again. So she would be spending the next
weeks on St. Francis. Well, there were worse ways to put in six weeks
of her final months of training than on the prestigious private ward.
And it would be a big improvement over where she had spent the
two months before her holidays. The mental hospital at Ponoka had
been the biggest shock of her life to date. Students were assigned
either the mental hospital or the tuberculosis sanatorium as part of
their training. Why she had drawn Ponoka instead of the san, Tyne
had questioned God many times.
In retrospect, though, she believed her experience at the mental
hospital had made her a better and, she hoped, a more compassionate
nurse. She remembered Aunt Millie’s advice when that dear lady
had come to Ponoka on a visit to bolster her niece’s sagging morale.
“Do you know what Jesus said to His disciples, Tyne? ‘Because ye
have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done
it unto me.’ He was talking about people like these poor patients of
yours. They may not be attractive or seem to have one quality that
appeals to you, but they’re God’s children, too. Any little kindness
you can do for them will not go unrewarded. Of this I’m sure.”
Libros Libertad 