How Many Lives Have You Saved?

Yesterday I had dinner with a dear friend who is a discouraged nurse. She has the material things she needs but life feels empty.
"You just turned 40," I said. "This is normal."
She said, "People feel free to criticize me because I'm not married and I don't have children and I'm not going to. I'm ok with that but ... what am I missing?"
Without thinking, I blurted out, "How many lives have you saved this week?"
"What?"
"You're a charge nurse. You supervise an ER. It's busy. How many lives have you saved this week?"
"Don't know. Don't keep track."
"So some every week? Every week of the year when you're not on vacation. How many years?"
"15 or 18."
"These are your children. They owe their lives to you. And you didn't even have to wipe their bottoms!"
"I wipe a lot of bottoms, actually."
--
Most of us don't have a job that saves lives.
BUT: we all do things that improves the lives of others.
Donate blood, food, money or whatever. Teach the young, provide a good example, clean up the environment.
We don't know and we don't keep track, but we do know that it adds up.
Raising children directly is special and we must respect that totally.
But in other ways: how many lives have YOU saved?