When approaching a situation from this perspective, we understand each person as fundamentally caring, living caring in his or her everyday life. Forms of expressing one's unique ways of living caring are limited only by the imagination. Recognizing unique personal ways of living caring also requires an ethical commitment and knowledge of caring. In our everyday lives, failures to express caring are readily recognized. The ability to articulate instances of noncaring does not seem to take any particular skill. When nursing is called for, however, it is necessary that nurses have the commitment, knowledge, and skill to discover the individual unique caring person to be nursed. For example, the nurse may encounter one who may be described as despairing. Relating to that person as helpless recalls Gadow's (1984) characterization of the philanthropic paradigm which assumes "sufficiency and independence on one side and needy dependence on the other" (p. 68). The relationship grounded in nursing as caring would enable the nurse to connect with the hope that underlies an expression of despair or hopelessness. Personal expressions such as despair, or fear, or anger, for example, are neither ignored nor discounted. Rather, they are understood as the caring value which is in some way present. An honest expression of fear or anger, for example, is also an expression of vulnerability, which expresses courage and humility. We reiterate that our approach is grounded in the fundamental assumption that all persons are caring and the commitment which arises from this basic value position. It is this understanding of person as caring that directs professional nursing decision making and action from the point of view of our Nursing as Caring theory. The nurse enters into the world of the other person with the intention of knowing the other as caring person. It is in knowing the other in their "living caring and growing in caring" that calls for nursing are heard. Of equal importance is our coming to know how the other is living caring in the situation and expressing aspirations for growing in caring. The call for nursing is a call for acknowledgement and affirmation of the person living caring in specific ways in this immediate situation. The call for nursing says "know me as caring person now and affirm me." The call for nursing evokes specific caring responses to sustain and enhance the other as they live caring and grow in caring in the situation of concern. This caring nurturance is what we call the nursing response. NURSING SITUATION