Not a Number

They are not a case to file away,
not a name, not a code, not just a day.
Not a diagnosis typed in haste,
not a number timed, recorded, or placed.

They are a person: breath, small jokes, a bruise,
a life that moves, that thinks, that rues.
I meet them there, without disguise,
human first, before my eyes.

Primary care is built on time,
the patient who returns, the cough that climbs.
The quiet change that slips between notes,
the thing you feel before the proof.

Sometimes instinct speaks: a paused pen,
a message left unread, a look that won’t fit the file.
No drama, no alarm to shout,
just a small insistence to look about.

Continuity teaches how to see
what’s always been and what’s newly free.
What’s usual, what’s shifted late,
what waits to find its voice and state.

I listen not to claim control,
not to promise cures I do not hold.
Because attention, steady and plain,
is one small way that care remains.

What life has shaped in those who care
does not announce itself with flair.
It tunes the ear, it slows the pace,
it reads the pain that keeps a neutral face.

Time moves on; rooms change shape; days pass.
Later, I return and find that pause mattered
early, timely, a small, decisive act.
Relief is measured; the weight remains intact.

The tears come later, when I’m alone,
for them, not me, for what is shown.
How the world can let good people bend
and how small kindnesses must extend.

No pride.
No guilt.
No claim to save.
Just the work: to notice, stay, and brave.
The quiet hours where presence keeps
a life from being only numbers, only sheets.

I will keep listening, steady, true,
seeing the person all the way through.
Because their life, in all its worth,
is never less than what it’s worth.

And that in clinic light, with time and care,
is the work I do, the work I bear.

Sr Laura 2026