SHINE FROM THE INSIDE
Story★★★★★A Boy IN AN American hospital which I once visited lay on his cot, both legs and one arm gone. He had been through intense suffer- ing both of body and of spirit. As he contemplated his future it seemed dark and gloomy. But there was one nurse on the night shift who did him much good.
He waited all day long for her coming. Not that there was anything of romance in his feeling; it seemed to him that he was beyond romance. It was just that she was so kindly, helpful, thoughtful, and cheerful. It was not that she gave him any practi- cal advice.
In fact, she never gave anybody any advice. She just went about attending to her duty, speaking a cheerful word, laugh- ing a happy, hearty laugh in the dark, uncertain hours which were so long and so hard to bear. One night just before this nurse was leaving his ward the boy called her over to his bed as if he wanted some service, and when she looked down at him he said to her with boyish sincerity and shyness, “I like you best of all the nurses.”
“Why do you like me best of all the nurses, Jim? There are a lot of fine nurses in this ward.” “Because your face shines!” he replied earnestly.
“Then I’d better go powder my nose!” she replied with a laugh. “Oh, no,” replied the boy, “I don’t mean that. It’s a light from the inside that shines in your eyes.” A tear ran down the nurse’s face as she turned away after ac- knowledging his sincere compliment, and as she left she said: “Jimmie boy, that’s about the finest thing anybody ever said to me, and I hope I deserve it.
I’d like to have my face shine from the inside.” The day I went to that hospital I had rather regretted the neces- sity of going, for I was on a busy schedule and felt that I could not spare the time for the trip. However, it was worth going forty miles to hear that story and to see that boy and that nurse—and to learn for myself that there were still people who, in spite of war, wounds, and loneliness, could ‘shine from the inside.”
It reminded me of an ancient saying of a biblical poet, “The king’s daughter is all glorious within.”
The point
A disabled hospital boy tells his night-shift nurse her face shines from an inner light, not makeup; she tearfully recognizes his sincere compliment as one of the finest things anyone has said to her and hopes she deserves it.