Pandemic Parables: Vision
Pandemic Parables: Vision
Thursday June 18, 2020
On Tuesday I achieved an incredibly beautiful balletic feat on my way into the hospital, where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. I flew through the air in a perfect parabola gracefully landing like a softly alighting swan.
At least that is what happened in my mind.
Unfortunately not in reality.
I was running late. Had to park in a more distant spot than usual in the employee parking garage. Raced to get to the foyer entrance so that I could have my temperature taken and still clock in on time. Took a short cut through some stationary cars. Didn’t see a low concrete parking divider. Tripped and went airborne.
Seriously.
It wasn’t one of those, “oh, I’m falling let me grab on to something” moments. No. It was more like a, “I am spreadeagled in the air with no time to think and landing with an inelegant thud” moments.
My mask flew in one direction. My glasses hit the tarmac and went off in another. The travel mug of coffee that I was clutching emptied its contents mid air soaking one side of my body. If I had been wearing a white shirt, I’d have looked like a ragged-around-the-edges sugar cookie with symmetrical brown and white icing.
Thanking heaven that I had on navy blue no-crumple material that hid the enormous stain, I raced, dripping, for the entrance and logged in with a couple of minutes to spare.
Incredibly, nothing was broken. No bones, teeth, nor my grandmother’s amber colored beads that by some wonderful foresight I’d tucked into my purse so they didn’t get snagged on the bags I wear inelegantly slung around my neck in the morning.
The only thing that was damaged, besides my pride, was my glasses that suffered a few deep scratches down one lens. (Although the next day I ached in places I didn’t realize I had hit, and felt as though I had a bad case of “old”.)
It is very interesting when you have scratches on your glasses. You see the world in a whole new way. Depending on which way you tilt your head people and objects are either behind bars or a little fuzzy.
But then I realize that I have been seeing the world through a different lens since starting at the hospital.
Certainly since the beginning of the pandemic.
(We now are down to eight virus patients and one person under investigation.)
Take nurses for example. I have always had the greatest of respect for nurses. Never more than in these last few Coronavirus months when I have seen their bravery.
But in new ways their kindness is coming into focus.
And their humor.
One of my assigned areas is the third floor. I was describing my dramatic fall from grace to a couple of the senior nurses.
“We’ll give you a pair of yellow socks,” said one, referring to the footwear worn by patients to stop them from slipping.
“We can make you a belt from two of the “Fall Risk” signs, said another, the nurse manager.
These are the long narrow signs that are attached to a door frame that alert nurses to the faulty balance of the patient within.
“That should do the trick.”
We laughed at the silliness of it all, and I was grateful for the love and care that I felt coming through their words.
I had felt the same care a few days earlier. I had been told very firmly by a patient in no uncertain words that they didn’t want to see a chaplain now.
Or ever.
Naturally I left their bedside immediately.
On my way back to the Chaplain’s office I met this same nurse manager.
“I’ve just been slung out of a patient’s room,” I said.
“Oh,” she said. “It happens to all of us regularly. It was just your turn today. Don’t worry. We all love you.”
Her words followed me down the corridor melting my heart.
On the day of my fall, while still on the third floor, there was a Code Blue in the Emergency Department - someone who was near death was being brought in. The ED is one of my areas. I was headed down stairs when a social worker called saying to get there as fast as possible as prayer had been requested.
I arrived. Behind the curtain was the patient, a team of medical staff, and the patient’s elderly husband. A nurse had already prayed, God bless her. The husband said he’d like me to pray as well, which I did. I prayed fervently for healing.
It turned out his wife had just passed.
And I hadn’t noticed.
It’s moments like these when I realize how incredibly un-medical I am.
The team stepped outside for a moment so that her husband of fifty seven years could have a moment alone with his wife.
I joined them to recover from my mistake.
When I came back in a few moments later I saw a young nurse had slipped into the room. She was kneeling by the side of the grieving man, who was holding his late wife’s hand.
“You made a life together,” I heard her say. “A wonderful life.”
The elderly gentleman, in deep shock, nodded.
It was a beautiful tableau that could have been a granddaughter comforting her grandfather. Love, kindness, and compassion shone from her.
She left the room as soon as she saw me. I comforted the new widower, encouraged him to express his feelings, and at his request committed his wife’s spirit to the Lord.
But the real work had already been done by that nurse on her knees.
Every day I see the compassionate side of these ED nurses, and the social workers that serve along side them. I’ve seen their tears when a young father lost his wife during a routine operation. They grieved for him. And they grieved deeply for his young children who were still sleeping when their parents left home, realizing that they didn’t get to say a last goodbye to their mother.
I’ve seen intense sorrow in nurses’ eyes as a young mother keened out her grief after her two month old baby died. I saw the soft blue blanket they brought to wrap the lifeless body in so that the child would not be in a cold, white, hospital sheet.
I have seen kindness in action as a doctor took off his compulsory face mask to explain a death to a grieving relative.
A hug being given to a sorrowing wife in a time when we are not allowed to hug.
A cart full of refreshments wheeled into a room where a death has happened so that the people in there saying a long goodbye would have sustenance.
A hospital is full of sadness. And kindness. And compassion. And grace.
This week relief has also been flooding its healing corridors. Some of the restrictions put in place at the beginning of the Covid-19 surge are now being eased. Some are small changes, some larger.
Previously, the few categories of visitors that have been allowed in could only go from the front desk to the patients’ rooms, and they had to be accompanied by a staff person on that journey.
Now visitors can go to the coffee shop and the cafeteria.
The salad bar in the cafeteria is open again, but with someone serving you the healthy goodies instead of self serve. These are baby steps.
A bigger ruling is that from yesterday, Wednesday 17th, one visitor can accompany patients when they are being discharged from the hospital so that they can review information and care instructions.
I saw a husband on Wednesday afternoon, able to visit because of this new leniency, asking the charge nurse on my floor when the doctor was going to arrive.
The husband was anxious. He hadn’t been able to see his wife of forty five years for the duration of her lengthy hospital stay.
The doctor was delayed.
The husband felt helpless. He told me later that he had been feeling helpless for weeks.
Unable to help the wife he loved.
Shocked to see how much her terminal condition had advanced during her stay.
He had visited the charge nurse’s desk several times asking the same questions.
I overheard his latest enquiry.
The charge nurse was gracious, as always. She explained that his wife’s nurse would be along to the room shortly and would answer his questions. Then asked him gently but firmly to return there.
At that moment the wife’s nurse arrived, and assessed the situation. She said to me later that she could see her father, whom she loved, in that older gentleman’s concerned face. At the time I saw her pour out assurance, and compassion, as she led the husband back to his wife’s side, answering all his questions, soothing his fears. Assuring him that the doctor would be there shortly, which she was.
Once again I saw practical love in action through my scratched lens.
No wonder I admire these nurses.
These social workers.
My fellow chaplains.
At some point soon I will have my lens repaired or replaced. But I realized that in a way it symbolized what so many of us have been through in these past, traumatic, virus months.
With the advent of Coronavirus we have leapt into the unknown and suffered a huge shock to our universal systems as we have landed into a reality so different from anything we have known.
Like with my scratched lens, we have come to see our worlds in a different way. Things are not as clearly defined as they were before.
Our views on relationships, recreation, entrenched racism have been challenged, changed.
Past certainties are no longer as certain. Things we thought were essential have turned out not to be so, and that which is truly important has come into clearer focus.
May we keep all that is good from these times, and discard all that has been shown to be unfair, unjust, unwarranted.
May we know deep within ourselves that love, grace, kindness, justice, is the answer to so many questions, so many ills. And may we have the courage to walk out that truth in everyday ways, so that our lives make a difference.
The author LR Knost sums up what I believe in this quote that I read for the first time recently.
“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go love extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”
This is God’s work. He will give us the strength to go forward. He will give us the vision. His vision. And the grit, and the heart to forge a new future.
A future that is good.
Amen!
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