I was tired. There was a slight flash of annoyance – impatience and frustration were my initial feelings. I don’t think she saw that fleeting reaction on my face, because she was approached by a nurse. I hope not.

I’ll call her “Vera”. When she’d introduced herself, I could not grasp the pronunciation of her Nepalese name. I felt awkward. It would be very hard to spend a few hours with a stranger, one whose English was limited, in this stressful situation.

She stood opposite me, looking very young and shy, a little uncertain.

I became immediately ashamed of my intolerance and self-centred feelings when I realised what she was doing.

She was standing, for a very long time, simply stroking his hand, comforting our disabled foster-son, Jonathan, with her touch, as he lay seriously ill in the hospital bed. Vera just stood by his side, observing and caring, offering her support. Touch has always been an important sense for Jonathan.

We started to chat tentatively at first. As she relaxed, our conversation flowed easily.

Vera was a support worker employed by the Group Home where our disabled foster son lives. The support workers were rostered to stay with him in the hospital, speak to nursing staff on his behalf, and help them with positioning him and attending to his personal care.

Most of the other support workers spent the time of their hospital shift sitting in the corner armchair, doing what was necessary in recording notes of his medical status, doctors’ visits, and pain levels. They all assisted the nurses to do what was necessary for his comfort – but much of the time they were on their phones or iPads.

A few brought in a laptop and showed him a movie or put music on for him. One read him stories. Vera’s eyes showed her compassion, her tender touch and gentleness showed her heart.

She apologised for her poor English – but once she relaxed, she became more fluent, and I understood everything. We conversed for a long time, and my heart was very moved by her story. She was twenty-four years old, and married, but without children yet. She looked like she was about fourteen, so tiny she was. In Nepal she had been working in a good job in the banking industry.

Her parents had organised and planned her marriage – to a Nepalese-Australian citizen. There had been no choice for Vera. It was an arranged marriage, not a love marriage, she quietly told me. The young people had some communication on social media, then he had flown back from Australia to Nepal to marry her in a traditional wedding, in 2022. She accompanied him back to Australia straight after her wedding, feeling very alone. No family, no friends, no job, and with a man she really did not know. She had seen him in person only a couple of times before her wedding.

She had trouble with the Australian accent and found it difficult to adjust to such a different culture and way of life. Life was therefore initially very difficult and lonely.

Her husband’s qualifications were not recognised in Australia, so he had already accepted a position in one of two adjacent Group Homes for disabled young adults. He enjoyed his role as a caregiver.

A few months later Vera’s mother in Nepal was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. Vera flew back to be with her. Her mother died, not from the cancer but from dengue fever, contracted from a mosquito bite. Vera was of course devastated. It probably occurred to her that had her mother lived in Australia, she may very well not have died.

After a short interval, Vera returned to her husband in Australia, trying to manage her grief and distress, along with her loneliness.

When more positions became vacant at the Group Home, Vera was also accepted as a caregiver, and undertook the necessary training.  She has been working there just since May. She has met another couple from Nepal, but they are “much older”, she declared. (They have just had their second child and are perhaps in their early thirties! I tried not to smile.)

Vera has really only been practising her spoken English for five months, since she started work. She has, during her short time in Australia, returned to study and has completed a certificate course in caring for the elderly, all done in English.

As well, she has chosen a new career, and as soon as possible she will undergo university studies in nursing. What an amazing young woman, adapting to a new husband and homeland, learning the language, undertaking work and study – and with a resolution to give back to her new community, her adoptive homeland.

The more we spoke, the more I saw gentle compassion in every word and action. I hope that by the end of her shift she was excited that she had another Australian friend (or perhaps mother or grandmother figure.)

The next time she was on the long hospital shift we were delighted to greet each other with warmth and affection.

Later that day she shyly asked me if she could have a few minutes off, to go to meet her husband who had cooked a special lunch for her and brought it to the hospital for her. She proudly showed me his photo. I was so pleased to see her eyes shining with love for him, and a little blush on her cheeks. It may have been an arranged marriage but it was obviously also a love marriage now.

I think she will be happy, with the love of a kind and caring husband, some new Aussie friends, the knowledge that she is making a significant difference for vulnerable young men and women – and some dreams to fulfil in the future.

She might look young – but what a strong, capable, and caring person she is.

I made a resolution after the first few minutes of that first afternoon: tiredness or stress should never be an excuse for not being kind and compassionate – towards every single person I meet. Who knows what pain another may be going through or has gone through, what grief or loneliness they are trying to cope with?

It's really not hard to be kind. Is it?

I feel that my life has been enriched through Vera’s sharing of her story – she has trusted me to understand her emotions, her sense of vulnerability, and she has trusted me to accept her. I am thankful to have met her, and I hope to see much more of her, in happier circumstances.

She will be a wonderful nurse.