Not For Applause - Personal blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.

I did not choose this path for praise, nor for the quiet power of a title stitched in blue.

I did not come for recognition or the promise that sacrifice would someday be repaid.

I came because something in me could not turn away.

Because when pain speaks softly, I listen.

When fear sits heavy in a room, I feel it.

And when life trembles between breaths,

My hands remember what my heart already knows — to stay.

Nursing is not a job I clock into.

It is a calling that wakes me long before the shift begins.

It lives in the way I notice things others pass by:

the wince behind a smile, the silence that says more than words,

The patient who needs presence more than medicine.

I save lives not with heroics, but with constancy.

With steady hands at 3 a.m.

With patience when exhaustion begs me to rush.

With compassion when the world feels indifferent.

I save lives by showing up when it would be easier to leave.

There are days my feet ache and my spirit feels thin,

days when the weight of loss settles quietly on my chest.

Days when I carry stories home that cannot be spoken aloud.

Still, I return.

Because love is not loud.

Love is the gentle check of vital signs, the careful explanation repeated without irritation, the dignity preserved when a body feels exposed.

Love is remembering a name when someone feels forgotten.

Love is fighting for comfort even when a cure is no longer possible.

I have learned that saving a life does not always mean preventing death.

Sometimes it means easing suffering.

Sometimes it means holding a hand as someone crosses the last threshold.

Sometimes it means helping someone believe they are worth fighting for — even when they have forgotten.

I do this work not for benefit, not for advancement, not for applause that fades as quickly as it comes.

I do it for the sacred trust placed in my care.

For the moment, someone looks at me and knows they are not alone.

I do it because love, when put into action, looks like nursing.

And when my hands are tired, and my heart feels full to breaking,

I remind myself: this is the work I was made for.

Not to be seen.

Not to be celebrated.

But to serve — with humility, with courage, with devotion.

I will keep choosing this path, again and again, because saving lives is not what I seek — loving people is.

And that, in the end, is what makes all the difference.

Not For Applause - Personal blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.

Recent Posts