An Untold Secret

"How can anyone be so heartless?" the young nurses asked themselves again and again while attending to the frail woman in ward 9.

The patient had been hospitalized for weeks now, awaiting certain death as her illness was incurable. Drifting in and out of consciousness, the woman's words made little sense to the young nurses taking care of her physical needs. It seemed unbelievable that the woman was in her early fifties, she looked more like seventy.

In the three weeks she had been there, nobody had visited or even inquired about her.
The ambulance who'd brought her to the hospice, after a neighbour had called complaining about the smell coming from the flat above, assured the nurses that the woman's family had been notified.

Pat, the Kerry nurse, had just come on duty. It was difficult for the young girl to work in this sad environment. No patient left a hospice but it was sadder still for Pat to realize that this woman dying before her eyes had nobody grieving her.

As the young nurse gently sponged the bird-like frame of the poor soul, she sensed death was near. The tell tale gurgling sound had already started.
The nursing staff at the old hospice were well used to the sound. The call of death, some named it.

"Don't worry," she whispered to unhearing ears. "I'll be here with you. You won't be alone"