Marilyn Bohn | Creative Organizer

This is an article writen by Nancy Kirk of www.Kirk Collection.com I thought it was worth sharing.

On Labor Day, crowds gather around a large statue commemorating the role of labor in the building of our city and our country. The sculpture features men pouring molten metal from a vat into a mold. The union leaders make speeches, the politicians make speeches, and the rank and file union members applaud before heading off to the nearby Labor Day Festival or home for a barbecue.

As I thought about labor today, all the images that came to mind of people working hard were of women I met this year. Women who worked in the way too many hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities I have spent time in this year - either as a visitor or a patient.

I’ve watched thin wiry women move patients who weighed twice their weight. I’ve met women who worked through the night, comforting, soothing, washing, cooling, warming, treating and turning their patients.

I’ve met women who gave showers, washed feet, cleaned wounds and ministered to the bodies and souls of people who wanted to be somewhere else.

I’ve been honored to know women (and some men) who felt the body is a sacred vessel and who understood that all of its functions are miraculous, even the parts many of us would find disgusting.

I think many of us dread the day we won’t be able to control our basic bodily functions and that we will need someone to wipe our butts. What we fail to recognize, is that our very helplessness can sometimes provide the opportunity for another person to give the gift of care with dignity.

I think most of us feel comfortable with the idea we may need to care for someone we love - a child, a parent, a brother, a sister, a spouse. And when we have to, we find depths of compassion and ability we didn’t know we had.

But there are those among us, who bring these same skills and compassion to the care of strangers. They labor as strenuously as the factory workers depicted in the sculpture. They are often at the bottom of the medical pay scale. They may or may not have representation by a union. But there is no question they are labor and deserve to be celebrated on a day like today.

But these people, the nurses, LPN’s, CNA’s, techs, patient assistants and others who populate our hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities, deserve their own holiday. Maybe it should be Dignity Day, to focus on the work they do which helps people maintain their dignity even when a mind is lost of Alzheimer’s or a body loses it’s ability to respond after a stroke.

I’m not sure they are ever going to put up a statue of someone wiping an old lady’s butt, but if life was fair, they would.

This is Nancy Kirk with your Monday Minute on Labor Day.