This is a day of intense mixed emotions for me: pride in belonging to the only public health care institution served by Sisters; sharing this event with the people I love and are very close to my heart; and sadness in witnessing the closure of a cycle of kindness, wisdom, mercy and genuine interest in relieving the suffering of the sick, a quality lived daily by our highly esteemed Sisters.   

It is a pleasure to publicly acknowledge and honor their reputation for knowledge, generosity, fidelity to their vocation and integrity in professional performance.

Dear Sisters, thank you for the consistency of your thoughts and actions, for your professionalism and strong values, for the love of our ministry and for all people.

We recognize your witness of God’s love, justice, fairness, service and dedication, as you devoted your lives to God and the care for others, always for the sake of the greater good and our patients’ wellbeing. You knew how to balance and enrich the philosophy and mysticism of the Institute and your Congregation, thus nurturing the tree of love and duty, dedicating your entire lives, body and soul, breath and hope.

Your ministry was exemplary for the sensitivity, dedication, warmth, kindness and untarnished honesty with which you lived out the mission.  Your spirit permeated those of us who have shared a chapter of your lives; your wise teachings were a school of life filled with smiles, patience, motivation and love.

We know that life is transitory, but love endures beyond time.  Thus, as your disciples, we undertake the bold commitment of carrying forth your legacy.

Women, such as yourselves, with that enormous sensitivity to know how to go beyond individual will and achieve transcendent changes, deserve to be not only remembered in an event such as this, but to go down in history for everything you contributed and achieved in support  of a nation’s health. This entire story is built by effort, leadership and tireless determination.

Your “life” and “work” are forever engraved in our nursing service of yesterday, today and tomorrow, not as a footprint to be remembered, but as a prosperous grove that will continue yielding fruits well beyond its parting. You undoubtedly have a place in the history of nursing and the history of our country.

Your work and example will always serve as an inspiration in our lives, and that is why we pay tribute through this heartfelt and genuine tribute to the nobility of your lives as Sisters, nurses and human beings.

May history embrace this event, and may you treasure its memory, as a handful of gold, of our infinite gratitude.

By M. Sandra Olvera, Director of Nursing, National Institute of Cardiology, Mexico.

Click here to read the farewell words of Sister Teresa Maya, Gratitude, Grief, and Hope: CCVI Farewell to the National Institute of Cardiology.