The Nurse Who Held Their Hands
Margaret never imagined she’d still be working past seventy. Her hands were slower now, her steps more careful, but there was something in her that wouldn’t let her stop — not yet. Not while people still died alone.
She arrived each morning at the hospice before the sun rose, the scent of lavender oil already clinging faintly to her sweater from the bottle she kept in her locker. Room 4 would want the diffuser on. Room 2 needed the hymns playing low. Small comforts, really. But they mattered.
Everyone called her “Nurse Maggie.” No one remembered her last name — maybe not even the director. That was fine by her. She wasn’t there for plaques or promotions. She was there because when her own mother had died — in a white room, without a touch or prayer — Margaret had made a silent vow.
She would hold their hands.
It started with Mr. Dugan that morning. Liver cancer. Bones like driftwood. He was the kind who didn’t like fussing, didn’t like noise. His wife had passed five years earlier. No children. He’d come in silent, and had stayed that way — until that morning when he wouldn’t let go of her hand.
“Do you believe it hurts?” he asked quietly.
“What, love?”
“Dying.”
She sat beside him, adjusted his blanket, and without needing to think, said, “It might. But only for a moment. Then comes the peace.”
He turned to her, those glassy, yellowed eyes searching. “You sound sure.”
“I’ve held a lot of hands.”
He nodded. And a few hours later, he left — with her still there, thumb gently stroking his knuckles, whispering Psalm 23 not loud, just near enough that maybe his spirit heard.
It was like that most days. A rotation of faces. Some afraid, some angry, some confused. And some who clung — not to life, but to the last kindness they could feel. Margaret had learned long ago that most people didn’t fear death itself. They feared dying without meaning. Without witness. Without love.
So she made it her holy duty to be that witness.
There was the teenage girl, Lucy, whose car had gone off the highway. Too much bleeding. Too little time. Her parents had been en route but didn’t make it before her breathing slowed. Margaret had whispered over her, “You’re not alone, sweetheart. I’m here. Jesus is here.” And when the heart monitor flatlined, she didn’t look away.
There was the man who’d spent fifty years as a bitter drunk, yelling at the world. But on his last day, he cried like a child and said, “I never meant to be this way.” She’d kissed his forehead and said, “Then let it go now. Just rest.”
Margaret kept a drawer full of little notes in her tiny apartment — names scribbled on scraps of paper, dates, sometimes just a line of something they’d said. She didn’t keep them for anyone else. Just to remember. Because love, she thought, deserves remembering.
One evening, she came home and sank into the armchair by the window, her knees aching more than usual. The sky was bruised purple with the last of the light. She reached into her drawer and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It read:
“Tell my boy I forgave him. And I knew he tried.” — R.C., Room 12.
She didn’t know who R.C.’s son was. The man hadn’t shown. But the words mattered. They always did.
A young nurse named Janelle started shadowing her that winter. Fresh from nursing school, full of bright ideas and protocols, she often glanced curiously at Margaret’s ways. No gloves during the final minutes, no rush. Just a chair pulled close, hands gently held, scriptures sometimes whispered, sometimes sung.
“Is that allowed?” Janelle asked once after watching Margaret stroke the hair of a dying woman.
“Is what allowed?”
“Touching them. Praying. Staying like that.”
Margaret smiled. “No policy stops love.”
That stuck with Janelle. Over time, she, too, learned to slow down. Learned that sometimes ministry happens in the silence between heartbeats.
One day in February, a man named Elias came in. Thin, dark-skinned, eyes rimmed with grief before even checking in. Stage four pancreatic cancer. No family. Only a Bible on the bedside table, worn soft from years of reading.
He didn’t say much. Just clutched the Book like a lifeline.
Margaret would sit with him, sometimes humming old hymns he didn’t request but always seemed to know. One afternoon, she read aloud the story of the thief on the cross. “Today you will be with Me in paradise.”
Elias smiled faintly. “That’s my hope.”
And when the time came, it was she who closed his eyes, kissed his brow, and whispered, “Go in peace.”
She’d lost count of how many by then. Hundreds, maybe. Not all had gone quietly. Some fought. Some wept. Some reached toward something unseen with trembling hands.
But she held every one.
One night, Janelle found Margaret asleep in the chapel. A single candle was lit. Her fingers rested over a folded note.
“You okay?” Janelle asked gently.
Margaret blinked awake and nodded. “Just… remembering.”
The note in her hand was old, yellowed. It read: “Thank you for not letting me go alone. — M.”
She didn’t know who M was anymore. The ink had smudged. But the feeling — that still remained.
As the years passed, her own hands grew more fragile. One morning, she stood in front of the mirror and realized they shook even when she was still. Her heart, too, had begun to tire. But she kept going. Until one morning, it was she who was rolled into Room 3.
Heart failure, the chart read.
She smiled when she saw the cross still hanging above the window. She asked for lavender. And hymns. And when the evening came, Janelle sat beside her — older now, seasoned, holding her hand just the same.
“Do you think it hurts?” Margaret whispered.
“Only for a moment,” Janelle said, brushing her hair back. “Then comes the peace.”
Margaret closed her eyes. A tear traced the side of her cheek. And in that quiet moment, she felt every hand she’d ever held — warm, invisible, encircling her in something larger than pain, deeper than sorrow.
“I see Him,” she whispered, voice barely audible.
And then she was gone.
They buried her with a small cross and a folded note in her hands.
It simply read: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”