Sonika was the first nurse to care for my father when he came to the hospital for his falls and Parkinson's Disease Dementia. She understood my father as a patient and as a person and made sure that her care attended to him as a full person. Sonika was able to really "see" and understand my father during an acute decline in his physical and cognitive health. This is a rare quality that helped to make the experience beautiful and human, not just transactional, foreign, and alarming.

Sometimes the whole is greater than the parts. Sonika showed compassion by addressing my father as a full person during her interactions with him. Amid serious hallucinations and agitations, she looked for and nurtured the humor and kindness at his core rather than simply managing his symptoms. This is a subtle act of compassion—a playful laugh at a quiet joke, a smile at his enthusiasm for apple-sauce-delivered medicine, and remarks about his humor and sweetness. A few days into his care, Sonika remarked that she missed him during the night shift when she was off duty. It was clear that she genuinely enjoyed him, which made him and the entire family feel at ease. We know he felt her compassion when he took her hand and said, “You’re a perfect nurse.”

Sonika ensured my father was placed in a single room, recognizing that sharing with another patient—the noise, the dividing curtain—was disturbing him and possibly worsening his hallucinations. She was persistent, making sure he had a private room before rotating off the case. We never had to ask. She took the initiative because she genuinely cared about his well-being.