TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
If you have ever experienced hospice, you already know that nurses don’t just show up with medical charts and medications. They show up ready to give of themselves, their time, their energy, their patience, and their heart. Blair Lloyd is funny in a way that sneaks up on you, with the driest sense of humor of anyone I have ever met. But more than that, she carries a kind of compassion that brings so much comfort—the kind of presence that makes you feel like everything is going to be okay, even when you know it won’t be. May is National Nurses Month, and it’s nurses like Blair who truly deserve the spotlight. She’s been a nurse for six years, starting in the hospital before finding her way into hospice, and like far too many nurses, she knows what it feels like to be underappreciated—to give everything you have and still feel like it’s not fully seen. In a hospital, everything moves fast. Patients come and go, and there is rarely time to truly know the people you are caring for. But in hospice, the pace slows, the walls come down, and you are not just caring for a patient; you are walking alongside a family in one of the most vulnerable seasons of their lives. Blair still thinks about my granny, standing in her housecoat at 3:00 a.m., thanking her and apologizing for not being “put together” in the moments shortly before Pop’s time to leave this earth. That so perfectly describes Granny: gracious, a little flustered, and wanting to present her best, even in the middle of devastating heartbreak. And Blair met her right there, without judgment or pretense, just a steady presence. Hospice nursing isn’t just clinical. It’s nervous conversations with family at odd hours, and quiet reassurances. It is a nurse literally stepping into a family’s story and becoming a part of it. To this day, my granny still texts Blair “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year,” and I don’t think there’s a better way to explain the bond that hospice care creates. They are lasting bonds that are built in the quiet, in-between moments. Nurses are right there in it with you, not above you or separate from you, but with you. If you are a nurse reading this, I know firsthand through my experience with Blair’s beautiful heart for my family that what you do matters more than you will ever realize. Even on those days with families who don’t appreciate what you do, when it feels routine and mundane, on the days when no one says “thank you,” and on the days when you drive home exhausted, wondering if you gave enough, you did. You do. People carry what you give them far longer than you will ever know. It is one of the greatest privileges of my life that someone like Blair, someone I love, respect, and now consider family, was the one standing in that room with us. She helped guide my pop home with a level of care and compassion that will forever be unmatched. But this isn’t just one story, one nurse, and one family I’m wanting to highlight. This speaks to something so much bigger. I believe the most meaningful work in the world doesn’t come with recognition or applause. It happens quietly, in the early hours of the morning, standing in the kitchen with a woman in her housecoat—no makeup and unfixed hair—while her husband takes his final breaths in the room next to them. Thank God there’s a nurse standing right in the middle of that space, holding not just the patient, but their whole family, and making all the difference.
Hospice nurse, Blair Lloyd, Bailey Gravitt, and Alvin “Pops” Beaird
GOOD EVENING TXK COLUMN BY BAILEY GRAVITT
I n late July 2024, I stood in a room surrounded by the people who loved my pop the most. The love of Granny’s life left this world the way most of us can only hope we someday will: held, prayed over, and deeply, deeply loved. Standing over Pop’s body, through tears, my granny remarked, “How blessed are we?” In the middle of that morning’s peaceful scene stood Blair Lloyd, a Heritage Home Health and Hospice nurse I admire.
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