Pandemic Parables: Retrospection

Pandemic Parables: Retrospection
Sunday August 23rd, 2020

I am about to embark on my last week at the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where, since last May, I have been working, first as a Pastoral Care Intern, and then, since September, as a Resident Chaplain. At the same time, when I finish, I will have earned five Clinical Pastoral Education units (CPEs) - professional chaplaincy qualifications.

I leave next Friday, August 28th.

This past week has been the last of our regular seminars, led by a pastoral supervisor and consisting of a group of six chaplains, three of whom work full time for Hospice. These chaplains, five men and me, started gathering together for two hours three times a week since last September, first in person and then on line. Two of the hospice chaplains were interns with me. So we now know each other well, although I only interact with one, in the hospital, on a daily basis.

We are an eclectic group, all ordained in different denominations with widely varying life stories. Only two of us were born in the US. We are single, divorced, and married. Sipping saints, in recovery, life-long teetotalers. All but two of us have children. We are military husbands, storytellers, geologists, home health helps, missionaries, as well as ministers. We come from India, England, Kenya, Togo, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

Our home lives were radically different. One chaplain’s dad was a British chef, another’s worked for the Indian Railroad, a third’s father was a Mau Mau - a feared freedom fighter whose goal was to expel the British from Kenya.

We have shared stories, delved deep into our own psyches and commented on painful experiences related by others. We have laughed and wept together.

Considering our differences it is incredible that more metaphorical blood was not spilled, but we have survived.

This coming week is when we do the last requirement for this, my final, CPE.

Evaluations.

This is basically a long, in-depth essay, which includes summing up the events of the last semester; our relationship with patients; staff; training supervisor; and fellow residents. We also evaluate how we have been challenged, and grown, throughout the previous three months.

Writing this evaluation has put me in a retrospective mood as I survey what has happened since I came to the hospital.

My time as a Resident Chaplain has been cut into two distinct parts - pre and post COVID-19. The first six months were getting to know and be comfortable with the rhythms of the hospital.

The Resident Chaplains used to meet in our supervisor’s small cozy office, unthinkable these few months later in this season of social distancing. Now, when on-line seminars and supervision are the norm.

In that intimate setting we learned how to be an effective spiritual and emotional support in a medical environment where focus is naturally on the physical. Understanding in new, deep, ways that we are made up of body, soul, and spirit and so there is a place and a need, for all of our caring expertise.

The best results happen when medical teams, social workers, chaplains, and other specialties work together to ensure the best outcome for the patient and their families. When the patient is well cared for physically, and is also listened to and knows they have been really heard.

I had been a prison chaplain in the largest men’s prison in Maryland ten years earlier, but this work was completely different. Still, I had just become more secure in my role in a very unfamiliar setting when the pandemic hit.

I always have managed to stumble into inadvertent adventures!

Everything changed dramatically, as I’ve outlined in these parables. The world stopped. It filled with fear, which seeped into the rapidly emptying corridors of the hospital, as most visitors were banned and any staff that could, worked from home.

I honestly thought by the time I wrote my penultimate post we would be on the other side of the virus. That I would have a perfect arc of a story - the hospital before, during - and after the Coronavirus virus swept through with its almost medieval pestilence and wrath.

Not so.

We are not where we were. But we are not home free yet. Maryland has low virus numbers throughout the state. Thank you Lord! Like elsewhere, our hospital had a blip, an increase, after the July 4th holiday, but now it has a low, steady turnover of COVID-19 inpatients.

At the moment we have six confirmed virus patients and one under investigation. This goes up and down by a few numbers daily, but on the whole it remains steady.

Two hundred and thirty seven positive patients have been cared for and released so far. And, glory be, we have had no virus deaths for a long time. The number remains at thirty seven in total and we grieve every one.

The hospital is already well prepared for a second wave in the Fall that we pray never comes.

I thought we wouldn’t need masks by now. We do. And our marvelous CEO has let us know that no matter what happens with the virus, the mask policy will stay in place until April, long after I’ve gone. Apparently, in the Southern Hemisphere, now in the grip of winter, Flu cases have been down considerably because of the population wearing masks.  He wants us to do our part to help that happen here.

Masks, of course, are everywhere. A new intern, a fellow creative soul whom I adore, gave me a red sequined one that I drool over. Then, as I’ve said elsewhere, someone anonymously left me a package at the front desk. The envelope said “Just a little something to say Thank you for all your Pandemic Parables.” I was stunned with gratitude, which increased exponentially when I saw that there were two masks inside, one white with black writing, and the other the reverse. One says “Faith Over Fear”.  The other “Fueled by Tea and Jesus”. Perfection! I love them both.  Thank you, whoever it was, for your much appreciated kindness.

Once the shock of having to wear masks had passed, their use has become familiar.  We have adapted.

We are a campus with a preponderance of women, certainly among the nursing staff. It is fascinating to walk along the long corridors and hear people say:

“I love how your mask matches your blouse!”

“Stylish mask!”

“My goodness! That mask is the same material as your dress. Beautiful!”

You can’t keep a good woman down. Even in times of pandemic, even when wearing scrubs, they know how to accessorize!

I laughed when I passed the gift shop the other day. In the window they had a collection of small, sweet bunnies. And they are all wearing masks.

Besides masks, other things will also continue. Checking the virus status of all visitors and staff is one of them. Patients are all automatically checked for COVID-19. The few visitors that are allowed in  have their temperatures checked by security as they enter. Staff take their temperatures at home and self-attest by swiping their badges against a reader. However the hospital will be installing new gizmos for both visitors and staff that take your temperatures from a distance of three feet. All who enter will have to pass its scrutiny.

What incredible technological advanced times we live in! 

There have been such enormous changes in the hospital since I’ve been there. Who would have thought that few visitors would be allowed? That, on the whole family members would only be allowed in if they were dying, and then only two, or the one when they gave birth? One can accompany you to the Emergency Department and two to Same Day Surgery. That strict policy continues.

Volunteers under the age of eighteen or over the age of sixty are still not allowed in and probably won’t be back until sometime in the New Year. Incredible!

And those who can work at home are doing so, at least until September 15^th. Then the policy will be reconsidered, and perhaps extended.

The hospital remains quiet.

But I feel that some of the deepest changes that have happened in the hospital during this virus season are the ones that have been taking place within me.

When I first came to the hospital I confessed that I had a difficulty talking to people who were close to death.  I can truly say that fear has gone. Over this past year I have been with so many patients as they are close to, or actually take their last breaths. I have had the incredible privilege of anointing with oil and praying with patients as they cross from life to death, to real life. I have comforted so many grieving friends and relatives - each one a sacred honor.

I have had to confront other of my own fears, unconscious biases, and misconceptions. I have seen where things I thought were one way, really weren’t.

I have reframed events that happened in my life that had caused pain. I saw them from a different angle and the pain was released.

I have seen and recognized emotional abuse aimed at me, and stood up to it.

I have learned to sit in deep sadness, recognizing that the world is full of sadness, and let that emotion come in, through and leave me. And when it had run its course I felt joy and peace being restored.

I feel I have been turned inside out emotionally, like a cushion cover during spring cleaning. I’ve been shaken thoroughly to get rid of years of dust, turned right side up and then been refilled.

Refilled with humble confidence, clearer vision, deeper insights, truer love, and hope.

All of this has made be better able to listen to patients and staff from a deeper more understanding place. To be able to be with them in a shared sacred moment and not to have to help. I have learned that to hear, to be, and if they want, to pray, is enough.

This has been the best of times, the worst of times, as Dickens said. And I wouldn’t trade any of it.

And over the weeks, months, and years ahead, as I begin to fully process all that has happened to me at the hospital, I feel that sentiment will only increase. 

But before I get too carried away with reminiscing, let me gird up my loins and get ready.

Examination week lies ahead!

This Coronavirus season has hugely impacted and shaped all of our lives. We all long for it to be over. It is not.

We never thought it would go on so long. We long for all the restrictions to be lifted.

They cannot be yet.

Coronavirus has brought with it devastation, fear, loss, and the oddest of blessings. We have learned deep things about ourselves.

Who we are.

What is important to us.

What we are no longer able to accept.

May we all have the grace to honestly examine our inner landscapes.

May we sit in sadness with our losses and inner grief until the sadness lifts. And it will.

Until we feel peace.

May we see a new way forward, and have the courage to embrace that way.

May we have the grace and wisdom to change. To discard old ideas, patterns, and situations that masked who we really are. That are no longer needed as the real emerges.

May people who are no longer part of this new era in our lives gently slip away, and may those who are to accompany us appear.

May there be abundant provision, opportunities, and wisdom to embrace that which we are called to be and do.

And there will be.

Because the God who loves us more than we can dream or imagine longs for us to be all He created us to be.

Our authentic selves.

That same God is with us, cheering us in this time of retrospection, in this season of transition. And He is already in our future to welcome us.

So our futures will be good.

Copyright © 2020 Geraldine Buckley