Some angels live on Earth. And some of those angels are nurses.
Nurses have an innate ability to care for their patients and their families and help them to heal.
And some nurses go far above and behind their assigned duties to help their patients heal.
Take nurse Brenda Buurstra for example.
She works at Bronson Hospital in Kalamazoo, Michigan where she is known as a singing nurse.
She uses the power of song to help her patients heal. Her angelic voice even helped one of her patients leave hospice.
Buurstra went out of her way to learn a song that one of her patients said that he likes, “You Light Up My Life” by Debby Boone so that she could sing it to him.
A week later he was discharged from hospice.
Though she’s been singing to patients for more than a decade, she was recently “caught” on video by Roberta Lytle whose dad was admitted to the hospital’s cardiac unit a month prior.
“I have sung to patients for 14 years, and this is just the first time I got caught,” Buurstra told WWMT.
Lytle says when her dad was brought to the hospital after having trouble breathing, the outlook wasn’t good.
“He has heart problems but because of his age, they can’t put a pacemaker in,” Lytle said.
“He had an episode at the house, and he couldn’t breathe. So they took him to Bronson Hospital. He was there about a week. We did not think he was coming home this time.”
But he did, thanks to Buurstra’s loving voice.
“He said, ‘My favorite song is ‘You Light Up My Life’ And I just started singing it. And he said, ‘You know that song?’ I said ‘Yeah.’ So, I couldn’t remember all the words, so I got all the words off the computer. And I said, ‘I’ll sing it to you.’ So I sat down, and I was singing and invited him to sing it with me.”
Lytle said she was “blown away” by Burrstra’s abilities.
“While we were there it took him a week just to be able to talk. We were watching a show on Pat Boone, and he told the nurse ‘I don’t like him, but I like a song that his daughter sings.'” Lytle said. “And this lady just starts singing. And I’m just blown away. Because the woman’s got a voice,”
Buurstra said that Lytle’s dad was just beaming when she started to sing.
She could instantly see a change in his demeanor.
“He was beaming,” Buurstra said. “Even through his little venting mask he was wearing, His eyes lit up. His whole countenance changed, and he had a big smile. You could tell that song lit him up. Literally ‘You Light Up My Life,’ that song really just lit him up. You could tell it touched his heart.”
Though he was barely able to talk, Olson started to sing along with Buurstra. Lytle said Buurstra’s singing changed her dad and it seemed like at that moment “he knew he was going home.”
And he did, a week later.
Lytle said she hopes that the hospital values Buurstra and her gifts. Buurstra says she’s been singing longer than she’s been a health care professional. She started in church about 17-years-ago and has always sung to her patients since she started out as a personal care assistant.
She says her work as a nurse involves much more than considering a patient’s medical needs.
“Not just taking care of the illness in a patient; to touch them. To touch their life. To touch their heart,” Buursta said.
She said she aims to make her patients’ hospital stay “a little bit brighter.” She credits her faith in God and her mother for inspiring her to care for others.
She says her mom was an incredibly selfless person who always looked to serve others. which was a major inspiration for her to become a nurse.
She also said God sent her a sign and told her that she should be an angel to her patients.
“When I first graduated from nursing school, I was standing in my kitchen and I said, ‘God, what do you want me to do with my nursing degree?’ Then a song came on the radio and it was called ‘Angel by Your Side,’ and that was my answer. I’ll be an angel by your side. I’ll be the strength you can’t provide on your own. I’ll be that angel that comes along side, and encourages you, and just loves on you, and I’ll do everything I can medically. But it’s not just about medical, it’s about touching the heart and the spirit of the person.”
Watch the video of Buurstra singing below.
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