Tonight at the hospital there was a memorial service for all of the people who died on the palliative care unit in the past year. It was a nice service: ecumenical, short, but meditative and meaningful. As I was listening to all of the names listed off, I thought it was nice to remember people and how they were loved.
But then I looked around, and realized how many people were in the audience compared to how many people were on the list. And remembered that many people die alone, or with hardly anyone to remember them. Or perhaps something that happened during their life estranged everyone who knew them. So how did I know they were all loved? Maybe some of them weren't.
And then as I thought about that, I remember that I believe that there is someone to love everyone. Everyone has at least someone who loves them, even if they don't love that someone back. And that is the beauty of God's love: no one dies without Someone loving them.
So each of those names, even if I couldn't see someone in the audience, was loved. And it was a long list.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Hardest Part
I think the hardest part of being a chaplain, so far, is that it has become very difficult for me to deny the fact that I am going to die someday. So will my family, and friends. So will everyone. Very obvious, I know, we all know that everyone dies. It's part of life: you are born, you live, you die. That's just how it goes, and there are all kinds of cute sayings to remind us of the inevitability of death.
But at the same time I go through life not thinking about when I might die, and I don't think I'm alone in this. Spending every living moment thinking about how I could die, and what to do about it, does not seem to be a very pleasant way to live. So I go through life trying to pretend I'm invincible, along with most everyone else. We drive aggresively, making that lane change even when the sun is in our eyes and we might have missed the car there; or maybe we roll through that stop sign, not really paying attention to what or who we might risk hitting. We don't exercise and eat the food pyramid, because there will always be time later to recover from that extra hamburger. We avoid the doctor unless we really need to, because visiting the doctor admits we might not be invincible after all. We put off fixing relationships, or saying the things we think we need to say, because there will always be time later.
But then when we're perfectly healthy, we catch the flu or some other unexpected disease and end up in ICU, barely hanging on, and our family wonders what happened. Or we drop suddenly from a heart attack, or an aneurysm, or an embolism, or a clot, or a stroke, and it isn't when we're 95 and ready to go and even somewhat expecting it, but when we're out jogging at 35, having sex at 26, swimming at 18, sitting watching TV at 47. Or we get in a car accident, or an act of violence we never saw coming, or a building collapses, or some other accidental event that we were no part of and never thought would happen to us, but it does and that's the end for us. Or cancer shows up when we least expect it, turns our own cells into assassins, and destroys us before we could finish doing whatever it was we thought we wanted to do. Or we come to the hospital for a surgery, procedure, or medication to make us better, but for whatever reason we don't make it through and what should have been a simple trip to get better ends in a surprise funeral.
And just like that, life ends. There's no predicting it, and in the end there's no stopping it. The easiest thing to do, at least for me, is to not dwell on it too much. To try and live without regrets, to correct the things I have to, and to try and remember that I'm not actually invincible. But watching people die on a regular basis is the hardest thing for me as a chaplain, not because it's sad (though it is often that), but because it reminds me that though I may never see death coming, death might still be lurking right around the corner. And I often think that it would be easier if I didn't have to remember that.
But at the same time I go through life not thinking about when I might die, and I don't think I'm alone in this. Spending every living moment thinking about how I could die, and what to do about it, does not seem to be a very pleasant way to live. So I go through life trying to pretend I'm invincible, along with most everyone else. We drive aggresively, making that lane change even when the sun is in our eyes and we might have missed the car there; or maybe we roll through that stop sign, not really paying attention to what or who we might risk hitting. We don't exercise and eat the food pyramid, because there will always be time later to recover from that extra hamburger. We avoid the doctor unless we really need to, because visiting the doctor admits we might not be invincible after all. We put off fixing relationships, or saying the things we think we need to say, because there will always be time later.
But then when we're perfectly healthy, we catch the flu or some other unexpected disease and end up in ICU, barely hanging on, and our family wonders what happened. Or we drop suddenly from a heart attack, or an aneurysm, or an embolism, or a clot, or a stroke, and it isn't when we're 95 and ready to go and even somewhat expecting it, but when we're out jogging at 35, having sex at 26, swimming at 18, sitting watching TV at 47. Or we get in a car accident, or an act of violence we never saw coming, or a building collapses, or some other accidental event that we were no part of and never thought would happen to us, but it does and that's the end for us. Or cancer shows up when we least expect it, turns our own cells into assassins, and destroys us before we could finish doing whatever it was we thought we wanted to do. Or we come to the hospital for a surgery, procedure, or medication to make us better, but for whatever reason we don't make it through and what should have been a simple trip to get better ends in a surprise funeral.
And just like that, life ends. There's no predicting it, and in the end there's no stopping it. The easiest thing to do, at least for me, is to not dwell on it too much. To try and live without regrets, to correct the things I have to, and to try and remember that I'm not actually invincible. But watching people die on a regular basis is the hardest thing for me as a chaplain, not because it's sad (though it is often that), but because it reminds me that though I may never see death coming, death might still be lurking right around the corner. And I often think that it would be easier if I didn't have to remember that.
How do you do it?
So far, in my few months as a hospital chaplain, a number of people have told me some variation of "I could never do what you do." Which is fine with me, because if everyone could do what I do then there wouldn't be much of a job market for me. But more importantly, there's plenty of things they do that I couldn't, or won't, do, so I think it's good we can't all do everything. I can't imagine cleaning up after people for a living (which is a lot of what nurses seem to do); or risking my life regularly (like firefighters); or any job where there is a serious chance of getting shot; or being on the road weeks at a time as a trucker (I told a husband of a patient that when he was telling me about his life away from home as a trucker, and he laughed since he had just said he couldn't do what I do).
Common corollary questions are "How do you do it?" or "Why do you do it?" I don't usually have a very good answer to either of those questions, partly because it doesn't often occur to me to ask those questions myself. Sometimes it does, so I do have some answers. As to "why," I do it because I think that's what I'm supposed to do. Simply put, I think God has asked me to do this. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Perhaps sometimes it is people who are to do the comforting, not only the mourning, so I am here. Jesus said that visiting people who are sick is important. These days, visiting sick people has to include visiting people in the hospital, so I do that. Visit enough people in the hospital and you will be supporting people through the process of dying, so I do that too.
As to "how," that is a bit harder to answer. I do it with a lot of support from other chaplains, first. But something that a chaplain much wiser than me has said points out a key reason how I can do this: "Remember, it is their crisis, not yours." Very true. I can stand with a family and watch as their mother and grandmother slowly stops breathing over the course of a couple hours, and they have to struggle themselves to remember to breath, because she is not my mother, or my grandmother. I can sit through multiple attempts to revive someone when the children and lovers can't bear to watch and have to leave the room because I am not his child, and I am not her lover. I can handle watching people grieve over the inexplicable death of a child without it rending my own heart into minuscule pieces because he is not my son, and she is not my daughter. They are not my siblings, or family, or friends. In fact most of the people here I hardly know at all, and that is how I do it. I can empathize and support, and I can feel the sorrow and pain, but I can also reasonably step aside from it, because it is not my crisis. The people I support cannot do this, because it IS their crisis: to step aside would be to deny what is happening, and in the long run they will most likely be healthier if they face the pain and sorrow now than if they avoid it. It is precisely when I do have a stronger connection to the patients or their family and friends that it becomes much harder to do the task of chaplain. But those moments also help remind me of what it feels like, so in the end they are beneficial.
So I leave the hospital, and step away from it all at the end of the day. I think and pray about the people I serve, but I do not continue to grieve the same way they do. And I turn up the music and let it cue my emotions, and feel the release wash over me. And I remember that it's not my crisis after-all. That's how I do it.
Common corollary questions are "How do you do it?" or "Why do you do it?" I don't usually have a very good answer to either of those questions, partly because it doesn't often occur to me to ask those questions myself. Sometimes it does, so I do have some answers. As to "why," I do it because I think that's what I'm supposed to do. Simply put, I think God has asked me to do this. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Perhaps sometimes it is people who are to do the comforting, not only the mourning, so I am here. Jesus said that visiting people who are sick is important. These days, visiting sick people has to include visiting people in the hospital, so I do that. Visit enough people in the hospital and you will be supporting people through the process of dying, so I do that too.
As to "how," that is a bit harder to answer. I do it with a lot of support from other chaplains, first. But something that a chaplain much wiser than me has said points out a key reason how I can do this: "Remember, it is their crisis, not yours." Very true. I can stand with a family and watch as their mother and grandmother slowly stops breathing over the course of a couple hours, and they have to struggle themselves to remember to breath, because she is not my mother, or my grandmother. I can sit through multiple attempts to revive someone when the children and lovers can't bear to watch and have to leave the room because I am not his child, and I am not her lover. I can handle watching people grieve over the inexplicable death of a child without it rending my own heart into minuscule pieces because he is not my son, and she is not my daughter. They are not my siblings, or family, or friends. In fact most of the people here I hardly know at all, and that is how I do it. I can empathize and support, and I can feel the sorrow and pain, but I can also reasonably step aside from it, because it is not my crisis. The people I support cannot do this, because it IS their crisis: to step aside would be to deny what is happening, and in the long run they will most likely be healthier if they face the pain and sorrow now than if they avoid it. It is precisely when I do have a stronger connection to the patients or their family and friends that it becomes much harder to do the task of chaplain. But those moments also help remind me of what it feels like, so in the end they are beneficial.
So I leave the hospital, and step away from it all at the end of the day. I think and pray about the people I serve, but I do not continue to grieve the same way they do. And I turn up the music and let it cue my emotions, and feel the release wash over me. And I remember that it's not my crisis after-all. That's how I do it.
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