Matriarch Monday {Florence Nightingale}

As my grandfather gears up to go live in a nursing home I am reminded of how things begin.  Most modern marvels or acts of courage to start a new endeavor are begun by one person.  The people that take these risks, are most likely gifted with courage but are packages wrapped in brilliant fear.  They can embark on such endeavors because of their own will but are surely lead by the fuel of those that follow and support them in the first place.

Take this as an example.  When my husband and I were headed back home from the West Coast to the East we drove in 2 days of the heaviest rain fall I'd ever seen.  We literally drove with a jet stream storm.  We should have pulled off for a day or two but I wanted to get home to my mother, and fast.  At one point in the trip we noticed a line of cars in the slow lane with hazards on.  That was all you could see; a line of red blinking lights.  It was quickly decided that we would slow the pace to fall in line.  This story is rather similar to this line because there was one person already doing it.  One person driving slowing with hazards on.  Then another most likely came along getting behind them and another and another.  I'm sure that the 5th car was like "what a great idea let me in on this".  By the time we were in this collective march there must have been 35 cars.  The thing of it is, the person in first car had all the pressure of leading with jaw grinding blindness not knowing what was in front of them.  But for all of us following had the faith that they did and with that forced encouragement we would all arrive safely.  Thanks to their leadership.

"Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid" 

Col. David H. Hackworth

This leadership brings me to thank Florence Nightingale 1820-1910 for starting the Nursing Home. For her vision of understanding and wanting the need for a clean sterile environment for the destruction of filth so that disease didn't take a downgraded slope to the next man.  She gave us our modern standards so that those who need it can live longer with comfort.

Thank you Florence for your pioneering ways of caring and doing.