Pandemic Parables: Processions
Pandemic Parables: Processions
I was in tears twice on Thursday April 30th at the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I am a Resident Chaplain until the end of August.
Grateful tears.
It was because of two different processions.
Let me explain.
The number of Covid-19 Positive patients who are discharged virus-free from the hospital grows daily. By Friday May 1st it was up to sixty two.
Glory! Thank you, Lord!
The hospital leadership wanted to acknowledge this continually-increasing achievement; mark a milestone in the patient’s life; and recognize the skill, love, and care of the medical staff that were an integral part of their recovery.
So they instituted the “Celebration Walk.”
We got an email outlining their plan.
They told us that if they chose to participate, a recovered Covid patient would pick either the theme song from “Rocky,” which is “Gonna Fly Now” by Bill Conti, or the Beatle’s “Here Comes the Sun.” Their choice would be played on the overhead speakers after they were discharged and being wheeled out of the hospital.
Any staff member who wanted to participate were to line the route from the ICU to the front lobby.
A mask and physical distancing would both be required.
And then this Thursday, it happened.
On the overhead speakers we heard
“A Celebration Walk will take place in five minutes. If you would like to take part please gather along the route...”
I headed for the front of the building not sure what to expect. I had participated in a deeply moving Honor Walk in the hospital months before. A patient about to be taken off life support was going on their final journey from the ICU to the operating room to donate their organs so that others might live. Their gurney was followed by grieving relatives. Hospital staff lined up throughout the long corridors in somber, respectful silence, paying tribute to the sacrifice and generosity that was being played out before them.
This was different. As the staff gathered there was excitement. This increased as the “Rocky” theme song started. Then, when the patient appeared clutching flowers and being pushed by a nurse, the crowd erupted in cheers, clapping, hoots and shouts of joy. We started to follow the wheelchair into the foyer where a socially distanced crowd of nurses in scrubs were also raucously rejoicing.
It was joyful.
And surprisingly emotional.
This has been a hard, tense season in the hospital with constant change and rapid adjustments. As the patient left the building it seemed that the virus was being swept out also. This was a visual first fruits of certain, if distant victory.
An assurance that the end will come, one patient at a time.
“There’s more!” someone said. “Another patient.“
We took our places again. This time we heard “Here comes the Sun” and an elderly gentleman was wheeled out to the same excited exultation.
I was hit with deep emotion. A few tears of gratitude and relief trickled down my cheeks.
As I looked around I spotted several co-workers, some familiar, others unknown.
Above their masks I saw their faces were also wet with tears.
We nodded at each other.
For a moment there was mutual, silent understanding.
We recognized in the other the same joy, relief, tension, and tiredness.
Then we breathed in deeply and went back to work.
The next procession happened that afternoon at four o clock on the dot. To show support for the hospital workers around fifteen police vehicles, with their lights flashing and horns blaring, slowly drove through the hospital property. They went past the emergency department, main entrance, and parking lots, back out into the Main Street and away. It was raining but the staff still poured out of the building in a sea of scrubs waving, clapping, grateful.
I was laughing, cheering, and capturing the scene with my phone one moment, and weeping gently the next. It had been a real honoring. From one set of front line workers to the next.
And that is when it really sunk in.
I am a Storyteller who will return to Storytelling.
But in this hospital, at that moment, I belonged.
And in some as yet unseen shape and form I want to work in hospitals.
I want that to be part of my Storytelling future.
The next day, on Friday evening not long after I got home, my cell phone rang.
“Are you in the hospital? Did you see it? Were you there?”
One of my Hospice nurse friends was calling.
She told me that just after I left work, half an hour apart, there were two Walks. One was an Honor, and the other a Celebration.
A young non-Covid patient hadn’t made it.
An older virus patient had.
My friend had lined up twice with her colleagues within a short space of time. Grief and gratefulness were followed minutes later by rejoicing.
And that seems to sum up all of our lives at the moment. In rapid succession we have lost so much, and yet gained abundantly.
Our familiar routines have been turned upside down. We chafe under the restrictions. We grieve our losses both small and deeply wounding.
And yet there is bonding, comradeship, kindness, mutual understanding that couldn’t have happened any other way.
It is a season of hyssop and honey.
Bitterness and sweetness.
In all of our lives going forward may the good outweigh the bad. May the joy be greater than the sadness.
And at the end of this virus procession may we all find ourselves, often to our amazement, at a different destination than we envisioned.
But exactly where we are meant to be.
May that be a safe place where physically, emotionally, and financially we are provided for.
Where we are appreciated.
A place where we belong.
Home.
Amen
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