A smile can change a life.

During the late nights of December, when the air was chilly and the moon was glowing, I was trapped in the confinements of my grandfather’s small hospital room. The television was always too quiet, almost a mute, and the room was full of small chatter between my family members. There was a stiff couch in the corner, which my grandmother and mother usually sat on, and a few chairs spread out throughout the rest of the room for other people. The awful blue colored couch could fit only a few people, and  had gone through a few weeks of torture with my family members coming and going during the days. The springs seemed old, creaking when it’s occupants shifted their weight around.

My grandfather was almost always asleep in his bed and occasionally piped in on a few conversations. His messy, white hair and the stained white shirt gave away the fact that he hadn’t got the chance to get up and shower lately. The glasses he wore slid down his face and interfered with the breathing tube that went through his nostrils. The farmer’s tan that he always got during the summer still seemed to poke through and show off the uneven white patches on his arms and neck. His blanket always covered his feet when the door was shut, the room became too drafty which caused his them to go numb. Nothing was worse than seeing my grandfather lying in bed like this for weeks on end, and it was unusual to me.

I didn’t know him to be someone that let other people do things for him. When I was younger, I spent a lot of time with him and got the chance to hear stories about life on the farm. His farm was out in the middle of nowhere and sat on over fifty acres of grassy, green farmland. On the far corner of the land sat a two story, old white farmhouse. It was surrounded by white picket fencing and spacious red barns for the dozens of livestock they had. The driveway was a mile long and neighbors were so far away that they could barely be seen.

Every morning started with the vroom vroom of a tractor plowing the fields and the high pitched squealing from the livestock in the barn. My grandfather’s days were spent farming, and his nights were spent sweating on the lines of DANA during the night shift. Needless to say, he worked hard for the profits and luxury items that he gained over the years. Then when his years started to pile up on him, my grandparents made the hard decision to sell the farm and move into Columbia City.

Most Friday nights when there was a Lady Eagles Basketball home game, my grandfather would take me to go watch and support our girl’s basketball team. I remember him taking me to one of the biggests games of the season. It was the night against our biggest rival, the Wildcats. The stands were filled with screaming fans with no empty seats in sight. Luckily, we arrived  thirty minutes in advance and placed ourselves in our usual seats along the back row of the bleachers. The game was a long, hard fight and the Lady Eagles were leading in the fourth quarter with ten seconds left. The opposing team inbounded the ball and hadn’t held on to it before we stole the ball away just before the clock read 00:02. In sync, my grandfather and I jumped up and screamed from the top of our lungs with big smiles on our faces! Every time I looked at my grandfather lying in that hospital bed, it reminded me of how life changes even when we don’t expect it. One night over Christmas break, my grandfather had got significantly worse. The medication that he was put on made his brain twist things and lose parts of his memory. He couldn’t remember where he was or why he was stuck in bed. My mother asked me to stay the night in the hospital and help look after him with her. We pulled out the couch into a slightly larger bed and tried to make it as comfortable as possible. It had at least five blankets and ten pillows on top, and it still could have made a quarter bounce.

It was just after midnight when I finally fell asleep. Shortly after, I woke up to the sounds of screaming and yelling. My grandfather was shaking his bed and screaming at the top of his lungs. He was confused out of his mind and tried to physically row his bed out of the hospital room. His arms were frantically moving in a rowing position and his body was shaking the bed. After witnessing a few moments of this, I raced out of the room to get a nurse. My whole body was shaking in fear, and I got lost a few times before I had found someone.

A few moments later, a nurse came in and took her place next to my grandfather’s bed. Her facial expressions were calm and her reactions were gentle. She reached over and grabbed my grandfather’s hand and smiled. My grandfather, with a puzzled look on his face, started to shout questions at her and demanded answers right away. The nurse politely answered each question and eventually got him to settle down. I watched in amazement across the room from the couch as she was taking care of him and making sure he was happy. I will never forget the look on my grandfather’s face. He had a vast smile that stretched across his face. The memories of him being strong came back and lightened the mood in the room. His mood changed from confused and angry to calm and cheerful in a span of a few minutes.

But I thought to myself, that is what nurses do. Nursing isn’t just a profession, it’s an adventure in search of life changing events and helping others. The smile of my grandfather’s face reminded me of all the good times that we’d had in the past. It pained me to see him in the hospital struggling, but when the different nurses came in and took care of him I couldn’t help but smile.