AN EARTHSHAKING TRAGEDY has gripped our nation with the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Shaken out of our innocence, people are searching for meaning and understanding in an uncertain world. Nurses have joined with custodians, lawyers, homemakers and bakers in a huge group hug as we try to explain to our children and ourselves why things like this happen. Our hearts and prayers go out to the victims and their families. We also remember our nurse colleagues in the stricken areas who are not only dealing with their grief, but are also trying to manage a health delivery nightmare in an environment already stretched with the nursing shortage. Texas nurses have been wonderful in their willingness to volunteer to assist with the emergency. In a compelling message of gratitude, Martha Orr, executive director of the New York State Nurses Association, put the horror in perspective when she said, "Many of you have offered to send busloads of nurses to help. Regrettably, there are not enough survivors to warrant bringing in volunteers. All of us at NYSNA are profoundly grateful for the outpouring of caring messages, offers of assistance, and volunteers."

Nurses are geared to save lives, to fix things, to make it all right. The realization that even our best efforts will not "fix" this situation has had a sobering effect on the world nursing community.

What happens now? Are the things that were important before the attack still important now? Do we just go on like nothing happened? Life in America will be changed forever, but it will not stop. People will still travel. People will still conduct business. People will still have barbecues in their backyards. Sisters will still borrow each other's clothes, and kids will still need that new CD. Life will not be the same, but it will go on.

We are still facing the same issues of nursing in Texas. The shortage is still with us, although a significant effort has contributed to easing the problem. A wonderful thing happened on August 31 as hundreds of nurses and friends of nursing gathered at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth to watch Governor Rick Perry ceremoniously sign the Nursing Shortage Reduction Bill. His wife, Anita Perry, is a nurse, and she spoke to everyone of her love for her chosen profession and her pride in her nursing colleagues. Many dignitaries extolled the virtues of nursing as the cameras rolled and the flash bulbs snapped.

From the entire afternoon however, it is the words of one staff nurse that I Remember. She said, “I have been a nurse for 23 years, and this is the first time anyone ever said thank you to me for being a nurse.” Upon hearing that, I was stunned. I was sad. I was stunned because saying thank you is so easy. I was sad because it had taken 23 years to have the words said. What a shame that nurses are so busy, so dedicated, and so stretched that we have forgotten the most important part of our job. We accept the importance of caring for our patients and their families, most of whom are perfect strangers to us until they arrive on our unit. But we miss so many opportunities to care for each other, our friends, our colleagues, ourselves.

I have vowed to say thank you more often. I now use every opportunity in my role as an educator to thank students for choosing nursing as a career, to tell them how lucky nursing is to have them, to affirm the career choice they have made. I have vowed to say thank you to my nurse colleagues, to tell them how lucky nursing is to have them, and to affirm their career choice. Can you say thanks too many times? Can you be too grateful? I think not.

So I encourage each and every one of you who is at a loss to know how to handle the national tragedy that we are facing to try to make your corner of the world a little nicer, a little more sane, a little happier. We have witnessed how fragile, precious and transient life can be. We should use every opportunity to touch people in a positive way before the opportunity is lost.

Tell your colleagues you are glad they chose nursing and thank them for the job they do. No nurse should have to wait 23 years to hear the words "thank you." I thank each of you for your dedication to nursing, and I am sincerely thankful that you chose nursing for your career. We are better for each of you. TN