God Bless you for helping all of those people...and giving them comfort for whatever length of time your could...
In all my years of working in nursing homes, I have had to watch many of my beloved charges die..in most cases it was expected, these for the most part, were extremely old residents...most of them seemed to sense when their end was near , many of them no longer had any family who came, so it was often up to us, the nursing home caregivers, to comfort them, to read to them, to hold them, when their turn came to die...it was always difficult, yet it was also an honor to be with them, as they died...
However, luckily for me, I have never had to witness a resident being starved or dehydrated to death...I dont think I would be able to handle that...my residents who died, just died from natural causes...a natural progression from old age...
The three of us were offered special medals by our commander the next week. All 3 of us asked the commander to just add it to our records instead of an awards ceremony. We just did what we were trained to do. He pinned the ribbon on our uniforms in his office. It's justified because he didn't yet know who stole 3 cases of booze from his fabulous Officer's Club along with 1/4 ton of ice in a flight-line truck for a party our squadron held on the loading dock area. 1 case of booze found it's way there. My buddy sold a case at his favorite bar for $. I sold the other case to my favorite bar for $.
God will bless us for saving lives. Then, God will chew us out for stealing booze and selling it on the black market:) It only happened once as a prank.