Pandemic Parables: Gifts
Pandemic Parables: Gifts
This has been a week of gifts small and large in the Frederick, Maryland hospital where I am a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. One of those gifts is that the number of virus patients in the hospital has risen gently, not in a tidal wave.
Yet.
Yet.
Based on national models, the hospital CEO is projecting that the surge will peak at the end of May. It is a wonderful hospital and the leadership has made a myriad changes to the overall running of the place so that they are as prepared as they can be when the flow of virus patients increases. Sections of the hospital, including what was the business center across the street, and a large prefab building given by the State and quickly erected in the parking lot, await a flood of patients that we continue to pray never arrive.
So far, by Thursday evening, seven Covid-19 patients had died at the hospital since the pandemic began, (and we grieve every one of them). There were eighteen confirmed cases and twenty in isolation awaiting results. But - wonderful news - twenty three patients have recovered- mainly due to the tireless dedication of the nurses who look after them with such love, skill, and grace.
Another gift is the changing of the visitation policy. It used to be that a virus patient could have no visitors. Now if a patient is actively dying two visitors over the age of eighteen are allowed to be with them. They are given gowns, gloves, masks - the same protective equipment as the nurses. It must be the same two visitors and they have to agree to isolate themselves for fourteen days after leaving the hospital following the death.
This is a wonderful relief for many relatives, and for the nurses who truly care for their patients. However not everyone can take advantage of the new visitation opportunity. One family had just had a baby and didn’t want to risk coming in to the hospital, another patient’s husband was too frail, another already had a compromised immune system. All good reasons to stay away.
There is a small dedicated team of Hospice nurses who work solely with the dying and their families. These women have become my friends. They are among the loveliest, most compassionate people I have ever met, with the most vibrant senses of humor.
It hurts these hospice nurses’ hearts to see a patient die alone. So they are organizing for a dedicated iPad, for their use only so it will always be available, to connect the patient with their family via technology through their last hours of life.
Although I am not allowed to go into virus patient’s rooms I consider it a gift that I am now able to enter the isolation wing on the third floor, one of my assigned areas. Before I had to hand the prayed-over pumpkin bread, that I am making weekly for staff that I could no longer see, to the unit secretary. She would emerge from the inner sanctum looking tense and strained. “It’s hard to be in there some days.” She’d say. “It is difficult to be cut off from everyone. And there is always a fear that you might carry something back home with you. Some of the younger nurses feel it particularly. They have small children.”
So I was really pleased that this week I could carry the pumpkin bread in myself.
There have been several deaths on this wing, far more than they usually have. The Nurse Manager, who has goodness, grace, and compassion coming from her pores, was concerned about the effect that multiple deaths were having on her staff, already tense from working in a virus hot spot. So finally I was allowed in.
The Nurse Manager led me through the door with its “Do not Enter! Isolation!” sign, to a second barrier. Stretched across the hallway floor to ceiling was a thick transparent sheet that was embedded with two long zips. Opening one,she let me through and quickly fastened it behind us.
Beyond that plastic wall is a different world. The strain and tension in the air was palpable. I could see it in the faces and the body language of the staff. Almost before I’d managed to hand over that much appreciated sweet treat the most incredible thing happened. Nurses, and assistants, got up from their stations, formed an oddly shaped circle saying to their co-workers “The chaplain’s here. We are going to pray. Do you want to join us?”
And we did! That prayer was one of the most heartfelt I have ever uttered. And I believe the Almighty will indeed pour His love, grace, and strength into and through these incredible carers, and protect them and those they love.
The next day when I returned to the unit I discovered what the second zip in the plastic barrier was for. It created a larger portal. Another patient had died not long before and I entered at the same time as a porter pushing a gurney covered by a sheet - transportation for the morgue.
“The nurses aren’t used to so many deaths on the unit.” Said the secretary, reiterating the Nurse Manager’s concerns. “None of us are. They are all doing so well at the moment. They are holding their emotions inside them and doing their jobs beautifully. But the strain will come out afterwards. That’s when they’ll need help. When we’ll all need help.” I nodded in agreement. And then we gathered, a smaller group this time, and once again, we prayed.
There have been other gifts. One of the hospice nurses, whom I adore, gave me a colorful hair band with two large, bright buttons sewn on each side so that face masks could attach and save your ears from strain. She had an abundant handful she’d commissioned a friend to make so that she could gift them to her fellow workers. My ears and my heart are grateful.
One gift was unexpected and touched me deeply. A cleaner on the non-isolation part of my floor, a kind and caring woman, has an angel ministry. She prays and asks the Lord which patients would be blessed by a small angel statue.
I went into one patient’s room, before this pandemic. He was overjoyed, his face beaming. “I’d been praying and asking for the Lord to show me that he loved me” he said. “I wanted a touch from an angel. And then a cleaner I’d never seen before came into the room and gave me this.“
With tears in his eyes he pointed to a small plastic angel. “Now I know God truly loves me!”
I moved aside all my preexisting theology about angels and knew with certainty that the Almighty was walking these corridors and using an abundance of ways and willing hearts to touch His people.
The other day I was a recipient of this Angel ministry. “Here” said the cleaner. “This is for you.” And she handed me a small white porcelain angel holding a full-flowering rose.
I was deeply moved.
Years ago, with the help of many volunteers, I launched a theatre in the church in England where I worked. It was called “The Rose” - short for Rose of Sharon - one of the names of Jesus.
Later, in America, I had a ministry also called “The Rose,” which nurtured and grew prophetic creativity. Creativity that speaks to the heart.
If I could have hugged that wonderful cleaner I would have - tightly. It was only social distancing that kept me apart.
That angel is now on my desk. Every time I see it I feel the Lord saying” Hopes and dreams I’ve given you will be fulfilled. In my way. In my time. Hang on in there darling!”
There were a couple of other unexpected gifts this week. The first was a silent belly laugh.
As part of my Chaplain Residency program I meet for two hours a week Tuesday through Thursday with my supervisor and five fellow male chaplains. For the last few weeks it has been via the internet.
Last week I realized, yet again, that despite having worked in the hospital since last May this Storyteller is still incredibly unmedical. My supervisor was talking about a heroine. For the longest time I thought she was referring to Rapunzel when in reality she was talking about the drug...
I guffawed internally long and loud at my idiocy all the while keeping a straight face for the camera.
The levity was needed. It was a deep serious session. One chaplain’s home town is Albany, Georgia. At the beginning of Covid-19, on the cusp of social distancing, when understanding was scant, two churches got together for a funeral for a beloved elder. They deliberately hugged and embraced to show that they were not afraid of the virus.
Albany, Georgia is now a main center of the pandemic in the South.
My fellow chaplain told me that every day he hears of friends and family dying.
In addition another chaplain in our group had recently lost his mother.
In the ten minute break in the middle of the web session I badly needed to stretch my legs. I walked down the long corridors passed the gift shop, closed for the duration, with its forlorn stuffed bunnies drooping under the sorrow of not being adopted. I continued on to the main hospital foyer grateful for the exercise.
I heard music.
It was coming from the almost always silent grand piano that graces that main entrance. There was a man in sweats and a golf shirt playing beautifully and with enthusiasm. It was one of the doctors freshly changed from his scrubs tinkling those ivories with abandon, playing for sheer joy as well as for the handful of people who were listening with surprise and gratitude.
I sat down eight feet from him and, through my mask, cheered him on. He played Elton John’s “Your Song” with its opening line “It's a little bit funny this feeling inside...” He ad libbed as he went along with the words “I’d build a big house where Covid could not live”. And ended with a flourish on “How Wonderful Life is When You’re In the World” before wiping down the keys, giving us all an air hug, and leaving.
I raced back to my web meeting thinking about all the people who work in this hospital and how, for this season, this Storyteller unlikely or not - is so grateful to be in their dedicated midst.
I also thought that in this time of darkness the glimmers of goodness, the unexpected kindnesses, the bubbling laughter are indeed a great divine gift. They show that He who has His eye upon the sparrow cares deeply and is watching over us all with great love and compassion.
I am writing this post on Easter Saturday. That divine pause between Good Friday’s sorrow, and Easter Sunday’s joy. Like us with the fear and uncertainty of the Coronavirus, on that long ago Saturday the apostles were hiding away in terror of the Roman wrath that lurked outside their door.
And then the Resurrection happened and everything changed.
In this season of miracles may Resurrection light and life flood all of our lives bringing deep inner peace and the certain knowledge that we are loved. Deeply loved. Loved beyond our understanding or comprehension.
And may we also know with unwavering conviction that somehow, some way, in God’s perfect time, everything is going to be all right.
Amen.
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