I was thinking about my parents today and a lack of balance in the universe. My father was a great man. He was accomplished and impactful outside of his role as father. He was a distinguished law professor, a district attorney, a judge Pro Tempore, a man of great integrety, and celebrated for his mind and character. His four boys were in awe of him, and his wife our mother was there, the loving supporting 'wing beneath his wings', nay our wings. She was sickly, with chronic renal disease in a time when it was mostly a long term death sentence. The universe has mostly forgotten her, and as her children die, that process will be complete. But the universe should not, for she was so much more in her youth and through her mid thirties. My mother was in her twenties a lifeguard. I don't know if she saved any lives. She never talked about it and I never asked. She was a nurse who worked in the Portland and Salem Hospitals. I don't really know what role she played in saving any lives, or any limbs or organs etc. She never talked about it and I never asked. I know she used to do a lot of wound care, including in the burn unit, because she talked about the pain she had to put some of these patients through to save their skin from infection or cleanse their eyes. I know she HATED working in pediatrics because she could not explain to young children what she had to do was for their benefit. I know she worked long enough in the psychiatric ward to say that the women's unit never seem to get the same choirs, magicians, the same volonteers, valentine parties etc as the men's unit did. She spent most of her career in nursing homes with skilled care patients dementia patients and hospice patients.. I have gone on to work in geriatrics settings. I know nurses save lives, because doctors simply are not there until the EMT's arrive. . I know nurses provide comfort, improve the quality of lives and help make their patients healthier, stronger and happier. A lot of them in for short stay care and rehab with a plan for home. I know nurses provide paliative care for the dying. they wash them, feed them, listen to them, give them pain relief. I don't know if she saved any lives, but I presume so. I never asked. None of us boys asked her about her nursing stories, like we did Dad and his stories about being a DA, a judge etc. He regaled us with his stories while she listened to them time and again and she listened to us talk about our days. My mother Barbara Marian Wentworth Turner was a great mother and wife. She was also a great woman by profession. She saved lives. She had to have!!! She improved lives every single day. Why can't I tell those stories to my children? Because she did not talk, and I did not ask!! Nobody deserves to be forgotten because their kids are too self centered and immature to ask the right questions. .
