I’m not sure in which department my mother liked working in least, oncology or the burn unit. Every patient in the burn unit hated all their nurses, because a nurse showing up meant pain, usually horrible pain; but patients in oncology could take sudden turns, one way or another, without any action by any nurse having an impact — or so it felt. I remember holding my mother on Christmas Eve while she sobbed, having just gotten a call from a former patient, thanking my mother for all her care the year before; the former patient had been sent home to die the previous Christmas, but was still alive a year later. My mother knew when the hospital released her that she would be dead soon. And then she wasn’t. Even the victories were hard.