Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Live Inspired podcast, Monday morning moments with John O'Leary.

So recently, Mom and I shared coffee with a man who helped shape our lives decades ago.

He was not a celebrity. He did not make the headlines. He was instead a caregiver at Mercy

Hospital's burn unit. And we came to know him heroically as Nurse Roy.

While he was an exceptional professional, what made him unforgettable, had less to do with

medicine and everything to do with how Nurse Roy served. In a place filled with pain and uncertainty,

Nurse Roy brought two things into our lives. He brought

vision and he brought love. When very few believed a boy burned on 100% of his body would survive,

Nurse Roy did not just believe that I would survive. He insisted that in time, I would thrive.

For five long months, as my body lay broken and my future remained unclear, Nurse Roy pushed back the darkness and spoke light and life into my story.

Each morning, Roy would walk into my room, he'd greet me by name. He'd lift me up from my bed and he'd carry me

back toward the bandage changing room. With my little legs dangling between his, he would say,

boy, you will walk again and I'll walk with you. Now move those legs. Today you walk. Well, my friends, the first time I heard

those words from that man, I hated him. The pain was already unbearable. Why, I had false hope

to the situation. I knew as a little kid, I'd never walk again.

I was convinced as he carried me back to the bandit changing room that he was wrong.

And yet, and yet, Nurse Roy kept showing up.

Day after day, step after step with quiet strength and with humble persistence,

Nurse Roy loved me forward. He refused to let me give up on a future that I could not yet see

for myself. The reason, decades later, I walked down the aisle with Beth, chased my kids

around afterwards in the backyard when they were little,

raced through airports to catch those flights, or more recently, stood to greet Nurse Royce.

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