Caring expressed in nursing is personal, not abstract. The caring that is nursing cannot be expressed as an impersonal generalized stance of good will, but must be expressed knowledgeably. That is, the caring that is nursing must be a lived experience of caring, communicated intentionally, and in authentic presence through a person-with-person interconnectedness, a sense of oneness with self and other. The nurse is not expected to be super-human, superficial, or naïve. Rather, a genuine openness to caring and a formed intention of knowing the other as caring person are required. In this sense, and referring back to patients with whom an expression of empathy is problematic; liking may be understood as a less personally committed form of caring or loving. In other words, liking is superficial and may not require the devotion needed to know other as caring. When the nurse truly connects with the other, liking the other becomes a moot issue. Stories nurses tell about their nursing bring to light the sustenance they find in the nursing situation. Lived experiences of practice, recounted to crystallize the essential meaning of nursing, contain the tangible seeds of awareness of self as caring person. However, the nurse may not be fully aware of self as caring person until the nursing story is articulated and shared. When the practicing nurse can begin to describe practice as the personal expression of caring with and for another, possibilities for living nursing as caring emerge. Here is one nurse's response to the invitation to tell a story that conveys the beauty of nursing. The authentic presence of the nurse in the following nursing situation focuses on honesty as an expression of self as caring person. HONESTY As Jason came through the door to RAC, a young black man lying lifelessly on a stretcher of pale green linen, the surgeon came towards me telling me not to tell Jason that his biopsy was positive. I felt inner terror. A man, less than 18 years old, was going to come close to the "truth" of living today. Yet the terror inside me was really fueled by the becoming moral issue I was going to face soon. Jason was surely going to ask of the results upon waking from anesthesia. "They always do." Going to sleep unknowing demands waking-to-know. "Honesty." Honesty as a lived precept of caring requires that I, nurse, must always and ever regard the person nursed from a position of love. I must enter all nursing activity with the sole purpose of using truth, only and ever, to promote the spiritual growth of the person nursed. In this climate of openness to myself and to the other, we can begin to experience freedom from fear. Jason inevitably opened his eyes only seconds or minutes later--I was so concerned with the surgeon's directive that I lost perception of time. My choice? The surgeon's choice? Jason's choice? All too soon, before I could decide "how" to act, Jason had arrived at our moment of honesty versus dishonesty.