A friend texted me recently saying: "Soozi, do you believe we have been out of nursing school 40 years ago this June (2017)? I was dumbstruck. How could 40 years have gone by so quickly?" Since then, I have not been able to stop thinking about my life, my nursing career, and how incredibly blessed I have been through the years working in this magnificent profession. Yes, there have been challenging, difficult experiences-but every experience seems to have been part of the plan, part of molding who I have become as a happy nurse!

I remember my first job, after receiving my 3-year diploma in nursing, working the night shift in a long-term specialty hospital. I can still see some of the patients, each with serious, chronic conditions-paralyzed from falls, car accidents, multiple sclerosis. My career didn't last long there. It was 2 years when I realized I could do no more to help them. With a heavy heart I decided to move on. This eager young nurse wanted to save lives.

Shortly thereafter, at the age of 23, I moved on to a great career at a busy, inner-city emergency department (ED), where I flourished. I loved the ED, the patient teaching, and experiencing the true meaning of the word "team." I developed excellent assessment skills and learned to read EKGs. I passed the Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support and became certified as an Emergency Nurse. Here I learned about saving lives and here I also learned about loss. It was the last year of my ED career when my nursing focus shifted totally unexpectedly, I was confronted with the loss of three people who meant a great deal to me. One specifically was a nurse who had taught me pretty much everything I knew as an ED nurse. At the age of 52, Barbara was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer. I found myself drawn to help her in any way possible. In the beginning this involved trips to the oncologist, at the end I was exposed to another kind of nursing I had never witnessed-hospice home care nursing.

Something opened in my heart and I knew without a doubt, I was meant to be a hospice nurse. I left the ED after 14 years and landed at The Connecticut Hospice, the first hospice in America, as a hospice home care nurse. In this nursing specialty, I still used my assessment skills, but also needed to learn more about a holistic approach to patients and families with life-limiting diseases. Challenging? You betcha! Rewarding? Beyond comparison for me. Each patient and family taught me something about life, living, the will to live, and about love.

After several years in the field, I became a Clinical Supervisor in a busy hospice home care office. I continued my nursing education as an advanced practice nurse with a master's degree and then completed a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree. Most recently, I moved into another leadership position. It is the patients and families who have brought me to this place in my career. On a daily basis, making decisions based on what the patients and families want has brought me tremendous success, and nursing happiness. It has been 24 years! I can hardly believe it.

I remember going into nursing because I truly cared about people and wanted to make a difference. I believe that is what nursing, in any specialty is about. Forty incredible years as a nurse, 40 years of gratitude. I hope this commentary gives you pause to reflect on what nursing has meant to you.