Nursing knowledge is discovered and tested in the ongoing nursing situations. Once experienced, nursing situations can be made available for living anew, with new discovery and testing. Aesthetic representation of nursing situations brings the lived experience into the realm of new experience. Thus, the knowledge of nursing can be made available for further study. Re-presentation of nursing situations can occur through the medium of nursing stories, poetry, painting, sculpture, and other art forms (Schoenhofer, 1989). Aesthetic re-presentation conserves the epistemic integrity of nursing while permitting full appreciation of the singularity of any one nursing situation (Boykin & Schoenhofer, 1991). Here, then, is one nurse's story of a shared lived experience in which the caring between nurse and the one nursed enhanced personhood. This story is offered as an example of nursing situation, re-presented as an open text, available for continuing participation by all who wish to enter into this shared lived experience of nursing. In fact, we invite the reader to enter into this nursing situation, which may then be used in classroom or conference settings to stimulate general or specific inquiry and dialogue. CONNECTIONS One night as I listened to the change of shift report, I remember the strange feeling in the pit of my stomach when the evening nurse reviewed the lab tests on Tracy P Tall, strawberry-blonde and freckle-faced, Tracy was struggling with the everyday problems of adolescence and fighting a losing battle against leukemia. Tracy rarely had visitors. As I talked with Tracy this night I felt resentment from her toward her mother, and I experienced a sense of urgency that her mother be with her. With Tracy's permission I called her mother and told her that Tracy needed her that night. I learned that she was a single mother with two other small children, and that she lived several hours from the hospital. When she arrived at the hospital, distance and silence prevailed. With encouragement, the mother sat close to Tracy and I sat on the other side, stroking Tracy's arm. I left the room to make rounds and upon return found Mrs. P. still sitting on the edge of the bed fighting to stay awake. I gently asked Tracy if we could lie on the bed with her. She nodded. The three of us lay there for a period of time and I then left the room. Later, when I returned, I found Tracy wrapped in her mothers arms. Her mothers eyes met mine as she whispered "she's gone." And then, "please don't take her yet." I left the room and closed the door quietly behind me. It was just after 6 o'clock when I slipped back into the room just as the early morning light was coming through the window. "Mrs. P," I reached out and touched her arm. She raised her tear-streaked face to look at me. "It's time," I said and waited. When she was ready, I helped her off the bed and held her in my arms for a few moments.