My wife is a nurse; she works in a nursing home caring for many elderly who are without family or their family never comes to visit them. The one quality about her I most admire is her ability to love anyone no matter their circumstances. I would also add that it isn’t always easy living with someone like that because you get a daily dose of reminder just how loving you aren’t, but really should be. But that’s not a complaint; it’s a good thing.
A few months ago she was assigned to a patient, 38 year old guy who’d been in a horrible motorcycle accident. Lost both legs and one arm, and over the next year there were so many medical complications with the one remaining arm, that had to be removed also. So he is totally dependent on others for every aspect of his life, from feeding on down the line. This was a very free-spirited, independent sort of guy, and in my wife’s first encounter with him he said “I don’t want to live any longer.”
To make a long story short, he now does want to live, and his day is full of activity. In some ways he’s more active than many men I know. He didn’t get this from anyone else there, where he’d been under care for the previous year. This came from my wife interacting with him, from her loving him when the rest of the world seemed to walk right past him.
So it is that quality I most admire in her. Her ability to love anyone under any circumstances. She is truly a gift from God, for I’ve done nothing in my own life to deserve anyone like that.