Shadows of the Workhouse (Call the Midwife)

by Jennifer Worth

The knowledge of rejection, of being unwanted, is more terrible to live with than anything else, and a rejected child will usually never get over it.

Health is the greatest of God’s gifts, but we take it for granted; yet it hangs on a thread as fine as a spider’s web and the tiniest thing can make it snap, leaving the strongest of us helpless in an instant.

If there is one thing that a dying person needs more than relief from pain, it is love.

I disagree wholly with the notion that there is no point in staying with an unconscious patient because he or she does not know you are there. I am perfectly certain, through years of experience and observation, that unconsciousness, as we define it, is not a state of unknowing. Rather, it is a state of knowing and understanding on a different level that is beyond our immediate experience.