The world is in mourning. Thousands of lives lost to the invisible enemy, COVID-19. Echoing through the hearts of the grieving is another sorrow. The thought that their loved one died alone. Their desire to be present with the dying in their final hours necessarily denied. Compounding this unthinkable loss is that attendance at funerals is limited to close family members. Another loss heaped on all others as they are denied the sustaining comfort of a communal gathering of friends and family. And we always remember with humility the unnamed who die in exile, buried in an unmarked grave.

The collective anguish and dismay of the bereft at times seem insurmountable. Where to find a measure of comfort and peace? What might assuage their grief? There is another truth to consider. That truth is that their loved one did not die alone; nor did the unnamed. They were held within in the powerful, mindful presence of compassionate nurses. Nurses with a deep desire to alleviate their pain and suffering, mindful of each and every person's body, mind, and spirit. And mindful of family and friends' distress. Therein is a measure of deep comfort, knowing that reverence for the dignity and worth of all in their care is ingrained in the heart of the nurse. This reverence is the living basis of compassion, compassion born of wisdom and courage. It's an understanding of the nature of suffering-the intertwining of moral, psychological, and physical suffering-and the need for compassion that arises out of that suffering.

Compassion is not transferring one's imagining of one's own suffering onto another, but entering the point of view of the sufferer while also retaining one's own sense of rational needs and practical benefits for the sufferer. Compassion is inevitably a paradox whose solution for action is veracity, for it is only in recognizing and enduring with another the others' subjective truth that justice and hope can occur. A justice that is realized by the other is one of being heard and one's deepest needs being recognized and valued.

Nurses always stand with love in front of the miracle of life[horizontal ellipsis] They face with pain the mystery of death[horizontal ellipsis] Nursing is a work of faith of an eternal value. - -Helen Patrineli