Better Than I Could Put It

I've told people that folks don't kill themselves because they want to die, they kill themselves mostly because they can't take the pain of living any more, and they (mistakenly) think it's their only way out.

Go here and read this.

H/T to
Not Nurse Ratched.

Some people do really need tough love. (I know, because I keep getting them in my life and on my gurneys.)
But a lot of people just need love when that's tough.
And no offense to the docs out there, because I didn't make the rules, but that's a lot more our turf as nurses than it is or ever will be yours. (My drill instructor's eyeballs would bleed to read that, but deep down amidst the middle of his cold green amphibious heart, and after pushing a few thousand knuckleheads through boot camp 18 hours a day, I think he'd give a "Hell yeah!)

So for them, remember the words of Ian Maclaren:

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

Kind not only in how you deal with people, but how you think about them here, and hereafter. If for no more reason than the thought that you never know when what you say to them may be the last time you speak, when there's no more chance for apologies or reconciliation, but only the entire rest of your life to regret an otherwise mere moment in time.