My youngest son, Christopher, is a Registered Nurse by profession, following in the footsteps of his mother and grandmother, both of whom were part of one of the noblest professions in the world.

My admiration for nurses and, for that matter, the entire medical community is matched only by my fear of anything that bleeds or hurts. Let’s cut to the chase; I’m a big chicken when it comes to medical stuff. I zoom right by that medical channel on television.

It’s weird. I don’t mind watching a lion eat some poor animal alive on the National Geographic channel but I’ve mentally blocked the medical stuff totally. I’ve been fortunate to be married to a nurse and am the father of one as well, but my fears of their world cause my skin to crawl.

My own mentor in life was my grandfather, Elias S. Mack, Sr. He defined fear as an “absence of knowledge, a lack of information.” Okay, the more I know about medical stuff, the more I fear it.

Christopher has a variety of terrific nursing stories. He works a weird shift at an Orlando Emergency Room, reporting in around the middle of the afternoon and working to the early morning hours of the following day. He loves it because there is a minimal amount of traffic to and from at those hours of the day.

The bad news is that he sees some pretty disturbing stuff on his shift. When I was 19 years old, I worked as a jailer for the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department in Lexington, SC. We used to have an expression that was 100% correct... full moon equals a full house!

What causes people to lose it when the moon is full? Christopher, who we have affectionately nicknamed Gutt, says the same thing applies to his ER. You can set your watch by it.

The gory stuff that Gutt tells me about is fascinating, but the saddest stories are those about the young and the helpless, the poor and the disenfranchised. Many of these people naturally gravitate to the Emergency Rooms for their care because they have no health insurance and frankly have no other place to go.

My friend Dr. Peter Morrow heads up the St. Thomas Aquinas Medical Clinic, a free clinic sponsored by my local Catholic Church. I do some work behind the scene for the clinic, writing thank you letters and doing some public relations stuff. I have enormous admiration for the 75 doctors and 150 nurses that lend their time, talent and treasure to this cause. In some cases, this is the only salvation for many of the patients that stand in line for hours to see these wonderful volunteers.

Since the medical staff in the clinic is protected by something called SovereignImmunity, they can practice medicine without fear of being sued. And since they are volunteering their time, they can spend as long as they would like with each patient without fear of punching a clock or making some daily quota. In other words, they actually get to practice medicine.

The heroes and sheroes that staff these volunteer clinics around the country have a special place reserved for them in heaven. Like all the care givers of the world, they bring more than medical knowledge to the scene. It’s in their title- “care giver.”

The saddest and yet most fulfilling moments of Christopher’s day is when he faces the improbable task of bringing comfort to a tiny crack baby whose mother has abandoned him. “He just wants someone to hold him and tell him everything is going to be alright,” says my son, “even when I know the odds against him are enormous.”

How can a mother abandon a helpless child? Drugs make people do desperate things and sadly the victims are the most helpless amongst us. When I’m about to rise from my sleep at 3:30 in the morning as I do most every day of my life, I am heartened by the thought that my son just completed another shift down at the ER and that he gave a moment of warmth and love to some poor creature who may never experience that ever in his or her brief life.

Thanks to all the nurses of the world. You are special people!