My brother was brought to Maine Medical Center in Portland via Life Flight of Maine for life-saving care after a motorcycle accident. During the subsequent 23 days, my family and I had to come to the sobering reality that we would be saying goodbye to my brother in his ICU room. During this time, I learned a lot about the medical system, how people treat those who are dying, and how people view those who are experiencing grief.

It would be easy for the many people on my brother's large care team to treat him like any other patient, but that was not our experience. I can't even imagine the many tragedies that they have seen and that they will continue to see in the selfless profession that they have chosen. Despite this, he was treated with the utmost care and respect. Seeing this treatment of him during the worst time in my life often gave me the strength I needed to keep moving forward.

Riley in particular embodied all of these wonderful qualities and more. Despite my brother's ever-deteriorating prognosis, Riley treated my brother like a person who was alive. To those who have never experienced this type of loss, this might seem like an obvious statement. But from the moment my brother entered the hospital, he had no way of communicating - no way of doing any of the things that allow us to build connections or make us full people in the eyes of others.

Riley, however, always seemed interested in knowing who my brother was. I shared photos with him and told him what type of music he liked, what he did for fun, what upset him, and what he liked to eat. When I told Riley that he was one of the only people I know who genuinely liked to eat sardines out of the can, Riley laughed and told him he liked to do the same.

Riley was great at explaining the complicated details of various illnesses and injuries and was immensely caring and supportive as we made the hardest decisions we have ever had to make. And hopefully that we ever will. These are the things that make Riley a great nurse, but the connections he built with my family and my brother are what make him a wonderful person. I hope that he knows my immense pain at the loss of my brother was lightened, even a little, by the care he provided.

Thank you, Riley.