Right up to the end, the grandchildren visited him in the nursing home. But we were lucky enough that he died at home, with the family around him.

We had irons and lamps that were 20 years old. He insisted on fixing everything.

He had a lot of years of driving around, taking us to cheerleading and basketball.

He spent a lot of years devoted to his family. There was never a break.

Four impressionable years spent in a number of very different hospitals convinced me once for all that nursing, if it is to be done efficiently, requires, more than any other occupation, abundant leisure in colorful surroundings, sufficient money to spend on amusements, agreeable food to re-establish the energy expended, and the removal of anxiety about illness and old age; yet of all skilled professions, it is still the least vitalised by these advantages, still the most oppressed by unnecessary worries, cruelties, hardships and regulations.

The most important pratical lesson that can be given to nurses is to teach them what to observe-how to observe-what symptoms indicate improvement-what the reverse-which are of importance-which are of none-which are the evidence of neglect-and of what kind of neglect.