Pandemic Parables: Flowers

Pandemic Parables: Flowers
July 31st 2020

There hasn’t been as many flowers as usual in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. I only realized this recently when I saw a beautiful summer burst of color on a counter top on one of the wings of the third floor.

“They are gorgeous!” I said to unit secretary.

“Aren’t they just!” She responded. “A grateful patient sent them to us after they had left.”

“How lovely of them. And so well deserved!” I said. Then started off on the rest of my rounds.

Suddenly I realized that the reason the flowers had caught my attention was because there are so few of them about. Pre Covid-19 days there were blossoms everywhere. Certainly around the nurses’ station where people would often leave their bouquets on their departure.

I started to investigate.

“It’s true,” said a seasoned nursing assistant, who has kindness and joy coming from her pores.

“I passed by a patient’s room the other day and thought how bright and cheery it looked through the open door. It’s only now I realize that it was because he had three flower arrangements in there. That wouldn’t be unusual in the old days. Before the Virus March madness began. But now, few of the patients have flowers in their rooms."

“Why?” I asked. “Why on earth is that?”

“Well there are hardly any visitors allowed” she said. “When friends and family come they often bring flowers. So we are missing those. A few months ago when the no visitor rule went into effect, it didn’t seem to matter so much. Patients stayed for the shortest time possible because they were so terrified of being in the hospital. And besides the virus patients, only the most necessary procedures were being done. But now we are back to regular operations and patients are in here for much longer. They get really lonely without visitors. And their rooms often seem – well unhappy. Now I realize. It’s the lack of flowers!

"Their families send them other things though. Things that they would have normally brought in themselves. Now they have to leave them at the main security desk in the foyer. It is stuff like batteries for hearing aids, clothes, and phones and books and cards. It’s usually the assistants who go down and get them. I’m often up and down six and seven times a day. That’s because we don’t have any volunteers. Only ones that are between 18 and 60 are allowed – and that cuts out most of them as they come to work with us after they are retired. And the ones that can come aren’t allowed back on the floors yet.”

“Is it the volunteers who normally wheel people out when they are released?” I asked.

“That’s right. Well at least they used to.” She said. “And so now we do that.”

I remembered seeing a third floor Nurse Manager pushing a wheelchair to the foyer. In fact I’d seen her do so several times. Now I realized it was servant leadership in action.

Still intrigued I asked the security officer at the front desk, the one who welcomes everyone with grace and love:

“Are you getting many flowers for the patients?”

“No!” She said. “Very few! Of course a few months ago when the virus really took hold, the florist shops were closed. But they still sold flowers in the supermarkets. I don’t think people wanted to come here to drop them off though. If you remember people were terrified of anything to do with the hospital.

“Nowadays we do get a few arrangements. Though not that many. Which surprises me given how sick some of our patients are. We keep the flowers here until a staff member can come down from the floors and get them."

I went to the gift shop. The wonderful sales lady said virtually the same thing.

“We were closed for so long so people couldn’t get anything from us. Just recently, after we re-opened, we started stocking flowers again. But we are not selling many. But then there are only a few visitors,though we do get some phone orders. Of course we are only opened in a limited way, from 12-4 pm Monday to Friday. That doesn’t help.”

Then her face broke into a big conspiratorial grin.

“One man phoned from his sick bed here in the hospital and ordered his own,” she said. “He said he wanted something bright and living to cheer up his room. I was delighted to send them up.”

I wondered if it was the man with the three arrangements.

I also wondered why I didn’t buy myself flowers more often.

Right by the gift shop, in the corridor, are several huge photographs. One is a close up of a dramatic sunflower. I pass by those photographs multiple times a day. But it was after having that conversation in the gift store about buying flowers that the sunflower triggered a memory and acted as a portal to the past.

I remembered being in London twenty-four years ago when my mother was at the Royal Marsden Cancer hospital. She was in the last few months of her life. I mentioned in an earlier parable how much my mother loved flowers, and that my father and I ensured that she always had fresh flowers in her room. Her friends from all over the world also sent arrangements. Or they sent money for us to buy flowers. Her room looked like a glorious, garden show, and the sight made my mother extremely happy and comforted.

They were a splash of color and life as she was facing her own mortality.

The death of a beloved parent is an intense, emotional, sacred, exhausting time.

I had that as my main focus against a backdrop of other intense, heart-wringing challenges.

One day I was at the end of myself. I had left my mother’s side with money that had just arrived in a card. I was going to buy her flowers at the sender’s request. On the way to the front entrance I slipped into the hospital’s non denomination chapel where I had my own private pity party.

“Lord!” “I said. “Where are you? I need to know you love me in a tangible way today. I just do. I feel so bereft. So alone. I wish I had a husband who would buy me flowers to show he cares. Someone I can lean on. I know that’s silly. And I love you regardless. Amen”

And I mopped up a few tears and went to the florists and chose a beautiful arrangement. As I was ogling the floral eye candy I noticed that a man who looked like Pavarotti – the incredibly talented, iconic opera tenor - came in, made a purchase and left. I went to pay for the arrangement that I’d selected. As I did the shop owner handed me a dramatically beautiful, enormous sunflower.

A sunflower that was showing off it was that spectacular.

“That bloke that just came in. He bought it for you.” He said. “He told me he thought you looked sad and he wanted to cheer you up.”

My jaw dropped. I ran for the door to see if I could see the man to thank him, but he had disappeared into the London crowd. Maybe it was Pavarotti, or a Pavarotti-shaped angel, or just an immensely kind and caring fellow sojourner. Either way I know that sunflower came straight from the heart and hand of a dramatic God for one of his heartsick dramatic children. To let her know without a shadow of a doubt that she is loved.

She is cared for.

And protected.

And that the He will always have her back.

And He always has.

The Lord knows that I love sunflowers. He also knows that I love roses even more.

Years ago in London, with the help and prayers of many volunteers, I started a theater in the church where I worked – the largest church in England at the time. We called the theater “The Rose,” short for The Rose of Sharon – one of the names of God.

So roses have always been very special to me. They speak of life-changing creativity, as well as beauty.

The same day that I heard about the man who bought his own flowers I went grocery shopping after work. By the till there was a display of gorgeous cream roses subtly tinged in the center with a soft pink. Normally I wouldn’t have spoiled myself. Finances are uncertain after the end of August. But I almost felt the Lord nudging me and saying – “Go on darling. You are so worth it. Buy them.”

I did.

I am looking at them as I write. They are beautiful. They remind me of one of my favorite scriptures.

Isaiah 35:1: (Indeed the whole chapter was the manifesto for The Rose Theater.)

“The desert shall rejoice and blossom and become like the rose.”

This Coronavirus season has been a desert time for so many of us

Our lives have been turned upside down.

For many there has been loneliness, despair, quiet desperation.

The virus seems to be never ending. In our hospital there is a small spike with seven Covid-19 patients and eleven under investigation. In other parts of the country cases are soaring.

I thought it would all be over by now. It isn’t.

Fear seems to be an integral part of this virus. For some, debilitating fear. Many of us will come to the end of ourselves before this season is over. Sometimes more than once.

When that happens, may we remember the words in the Good Book in Isaiah 43:12:

“A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out…”

He will be there when we most need Him. The despair will pass. The vast, empty, lonely wilderness will not be a permanent home.

May you know light in the darkness.

Laughter in the sadness.

Joy in the despair.

May there be the equivalent of sunflowers and roses in your present – splashes of love and light in whatever form that brings you joy.

May you have a sure knowledge that the Lord is a God of miracles both domestic and dramatic. And when your spirit cries out for affirmation may He send you your own unique version of a handsome stranger with a sunflower to show you that you are loved.

The Lord is a God of power, compassion, creativity and joy. He is the God who sees you. And loves you. And wants the best for you.

He is already in your future and in mine.

Which means that our futures will be good.

Pandemic Parables: Magnet

Pandemic Parables: Magnet
Saturday July 25th 2020

This week there has been great excitement in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August.

This was Magnet Week.

Let me explain.

Magnet Recognition is a huge honor awarded by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (AMCC) to hospitals committed to excellence. Indeed it’s the highest credential they give.

To even get on the radar of consideration a hospital has to have, among other things, a low turnover rate of dedicated effective nurses who love working in the hospital because they are nurtured and encouraged to advance in their careers. There has to be a healthy work environment, open communication, and excellent collaboration between different teams and specialties.

And of course there has to be absolutely fabulous nursing.

We have that in spades!

There are seventy two hospitals in the State of Maryland. Only seven have Magnet Status. Our hospital wants to be the eighth.

To be considered, there is a several years long process that includes sending in all sorts of reports Only a few hospitals get a coveted site visit, the precursor and last hurdle before achieving Magnet Status. Our hospital was offered a site appraisal earlier this year. This much anticipated event happened last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

The visiting appraisers couldn’t come in person because of Covid-19, so they arrived via a workstation on wheels known as a WOW.

(When I first started as an Intern last May, I heard that mobile workstations used to be called a Computer on Wheels - a COW. The nurses, and other medical staff, use them on each floor of the hospital. The name was changed after a notoriously grumpy elderly patient complained. Apparently a nurse had accidentally left one of these computers in the patient’s room. Someone else was looking for it. A nursing assistant came in to check on the patient, spied the lost machinery and came out into the hallway announcing “I’ve just seen the COW in room 3013.”

The patient heard.

Sparks flew.

The name was changed...)

(Another aside. There is no room 3013. I know because I spent ages looking for it one day. There are no rooms 13 on any of the hospitals' floors because many patients associate that number with bad luck...)

For this important visit “ambassadors” - specially selected nurses - were wheeling the WOW around. They were visiting every department within the hospital as well as Hospice and Oncology, which are in separate buildings. They met with the Medical Executive Committee who bragged about the brilliant nursing care at the hospital. They also met with members of the Community and Schools of Nursing who shared their positive experiences working as partners with us, and their experiences receiving care.

It seems as though the appraisers really liked what they saw including several examples of excellence they plan to recommend that senior leadership share at national conferences. And although we probably won’t know the results for a couple of months, by which time I will have left the hospital, all the signs point towards a positive outcome.

I am beyond thrilled.

Since I have arrived at the hospital I have been amazed at the dedication and compassion shown by the nurses. My admiration, which was already high, soared when COVID-19 became part of the equation. They deserved every one of the “hero” designations heaped on them by the community.

To me, getting the award would be a divine “Thank you!” to the nursing staff for continuously pouring out skill, love, and compassion on the sickest of patients, as well as all the others, during this fear-filled time.

One of my floors is the third floor. Before their allotted WOW visit on Tuesday afternoon excitement was running high among the nurses.

“I’m praying!” I told them all.

“Furiously!”

And indeed I did throughout the two hour on-line seminar that I had to attend while the WOW was being wheeled around.

As soon as my class ended I raced upstairs to find out how they fared.

The floor is divided into three sections.

3A was a dedicated Coronavirus isolation wing until the beginning of June.

“How did it go?” I asked one of the nurses.

She was bubbling.

“It was so good!” She said excitedly. “It was like looking into an iPad. You could see the faces of the assessors. We all thought that they’d talk to us separately but they gathered us all together. They were great. They were really interested in everything we had done as an isolation unit. We had a lovely time telling them about it all. In fact we ran out of time with lots more to say. In the end the assessors said that they would really like to come and work on 3A. And we said we’d really like to have them!”

I was beyond thrilled! The secretary and Nurse Manager also said how well it had gone.

Glory!

I trotted off to 3B, the section that now (with 4B) has the Coronavirus patients among their case load. (There is a small uptick in virus patients. At the end of the week we had seven confirmed patients, seven under investigation, and two hundred and twelve Covid-19 positive in-patient discharges. May those first two numbers shrink dramatically to zero and the last one grow. Soon! Oh Lord, Let it be!)

There was a gathering of male and female nurses in the charge nurses office.

“Tell me all,” I said. “How did it go!”

Words erupted from this group as though catapulting from a volcano.

“It went well!”

“They were great interviewers!”

“They asked the best questions “

“We had so much to say!”

“They seemed really nice!”

“And interested!”

“They said they wanted to come and work on 3B!”

I was laughing and exclaiming along with all of them and was ridiculously proud of each and every one of them.

There was a similar story on 3G. I talked to the charge nurse, who sounded like a mother hen who was delighted by her chicks, and herself. She glowed!

“It went really well.” She said. “Really, really well. The best thing is that I think those assessors saw who we are as a team. Really saw us and our work. It seems as though they loved what they saw. I couldn’t be more thrilled.”

Nor could I!

With every fiber of my being I want this hospital to be granted the Magnet award.

I have the greatest respect for these nurses, and for the ones in the Emergency Room, and Same Day Surgery - my other allotted areas. (Their interviews happened last Thursday and apparently they also went marvelously well.)

My admiration is rooted in the knowledge that I could not do what these dedicated professionals do.

Indeed I learned early in life that I was not created to be a nurse.

My first inkling of this was when I was around ten years of age. My Great Aunt Eileen lived with us. By this point in her life she was bed bound with severe rheumatoid arthritis. Her right leg was particularly painful and she kept it sticking out of the bed because even the weight of a sheet on it was too much for her to bear.

My great aunt was a character. I loved her with all her odd eccentricities.

She had lived in New York during the years after WWII but would make frequent trips back home to England. An England that was enduring severe rationing of basic goods for ten years after the armistice in 1945.

A few months before my mother’s wedding in 1953 my great aunt stepped off the ship in Liverpool and her awaiting family saw that she had put on a tremendous amount of weight around her middle.

As soon as she got home she shed that weight in a couple of minutes.

That’s when she unwound the yards and yards of expensive, beautiful, cream embossed silk that she had just smuggled into the country for my mother’s wedding dress.

My mother looks superb in the photos!

It was this same great aunt who, close to the end of her life, was in great pain and confined to bed. When she needed something she would bang on the floor of her room with her walking stick. My mother would then go up and see to her needs.

One morning my mother had already climbed the flight of stairs several times to attend to my great aunt (her aunt.)

“You go this time,” she said.

I trotted up the stairs.

“I want some more water,” said my aunt.

I went to refill her glass and placed it on her side table.

“Help me drink it!” ordered my aunt.

I scooped her up with one arm, turned to get her the water, then managed to drop her. She slumped back into her pillows with a thud.

My aunt was not pleased.

I tried again.

I propped my aunt up, turned to get the water, held it up to her lips and managed to dribble it down her chin. I made another attempt and this time some water splashed onto her chest.

This was too much for my feisty aunt.

“Get out! Get out!” She shouted. In my haste to put the glass down I slopped more water onto her.

“Get out!” My aunt shouted again.

I put the glass down and fled. But in my haste I tripped over her poor, painful, inflamed leg.

Her howls of anguish followed me down the stairs, and entered my psyche assuring me that nursing was not in my destiny.

Despite that knowledge I once, thirty years ago, looked after a famous, sometimes cranky, witty, elderly lady in Austin, Texas. She needed 24 hour nursing care, and was in the period before new health insurance kicked in. With subterfuge, persuasion, and the tiniest downright lie or two she persuaded me to come and look after her. I thought I was going to cook her meals and entertain her friends. I had no idea that bedpans would be involved.

Lots and lots of bedpans.

It was during that time that I developed a love for nurses, as well as an absolute knowing that this fine profession is a calling, and needs a divine anointing to be done well.

I rediscovered that I have neither of those things. But I recognize when other people do.

I see the calling and anointing on the nurses of all levels in our hospital.

Together with their bravery and dedication in the most trying, constantly changing, frightening, of seasons.

And that is why, I so passionately want them to get this Magnet Classification.

This divine thank you.

There are many times that the Good Book tells us that that the Lord sees what we do, and our reward is in His hand.

May that be true for all of us.

We might not have nursed others with great skill and compassion during a pandemic. But we have done what we are gifted to do.

Cook. Encourage. Write. Speak. Phone a friend. Tell stories. Knit socks.

Held on to hope in the midst of a world gone crazy.

I believe that the Lord will reward us.

He will give us the desires of our hearts.

He will change our circumstances.

We will fulfill our destinies, what we were created to do, in a way that would have been impossible without the tempering of this season.

A magnet draws iron particles towards it. We have shown courage, bravery and love during this Coronavirus season. We have let go of our accustomed way of life and gone without celebrations, hugs, and rationed our toilet paper.

We are wearing masks and socially distancing.

I believe that because of our sacrifices – these and others - we will draw towards ourselves, not iron filings, but answered prayers.

We will attract, will live in, a future where we walk in the fullness of all we were called to do. And are fulfilled and well provided for as we do so.

We will experience our own Divine Thank you.

So our future will be good.

May it be so.

Amen!

Pandemic Parables: Notice Boards

Pandemic Parables: Notice Boards
Saturday July 18th 2020

As I walk around my assigned section of the hospital in Frederick, Maryland, where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August, I see many notice boards. Some are informative, some intentionally hilarious, and others make my heart sing.

Talking about walking around the hospital though, I do a lot of it. I regularly round. (Please note that I’m starting to use hospital jargon. This phrase for popping in to see patients makes me - incredibly un-medical me - feel like an insider. What a hoot!)

In an attempt to do 10,000 steps a day I usually take the long way round the hospital and climb stairs, rather than ride the elevator to get to my assigned third floor.

Yesterday I walked to the front foyer carrying the blue plastic jug that we use to fill the office kettle. I was standing by the filtered water dispenser when a staff member, possibly a social worker or a non-scrub wearing nurse, came along the corridor pushing a large, elderly man in a wheelchair. She was clearly taking him to the front exit after he had been discharged. I smiled and greeted both of them and went back to filling the jug.

On her return the staff member said in passing. “That gentleman told me.' I’ve often seen that lady walking along the hospital corridors.' I said, that’s because she is a Chaplain. 'Oh,' he said. 'I see. I thought she was lost!'”

On some days he’d be absolutely right. But not recently. At least not physically.

Back to the notice boards!

In some of the units there are boards, praising the bravery of the staff - notes that have come in from the community and messages from upper management. Some boards have pictures of all of the nursing staff on that unit with their first names. Next to the pictures on one board, there is a declaration that these nurses are the ones that run this joint.

That board is in the orthopedic unit and it makes me smile every time I pass by.

There is a board in Same Day Surgery with pictures of all the nursing staff’s dogs. I am a pooch lover. I always linger at that one.

Then there is one at the entrance to the ICU Department. This is not on my usual beat, but I often go there on Fridays when their assigned chaplain is away.

This notice board has a regularly changing quote that I look forward to seeing.

Some of them have been:

“Nursing is a work of the heart.”

“Love is in the air but so is Covid-19. Please wash your hands.”

But the one that stopped me in my tracks the other day and had me laughing was:

“Fate whispered to the warrior, “You cannot withstand the storm.” The warrior replied. “You aren’t six feet back.”

The nurses on that unit have withstood the Coronavirus storm over the last several months. But now virus patients are rarely on their floor. The ones that have come in haven’t been ill enough to need the level of care that this dedicated team give.

The six confirmed virus patients and two under investigation that we had in the hospital yesterday were all in the less intensive Covid areas on the third and fourth floor.

We are all so aware that the virus is surging in other parts of the nation and that other State’s ICU units are overwhelmed. The chaplains pray daily for those areas, and even more fervently that Maryland as a whole, and our hospital in particular, are spared a second surge.

Lord let it be so!

The Lord certainly answers fervent prayers. I was reminded of this yet again when I passed by a notice board in the Volunteer Office. On it was a sign that said:

“The world is hugged by the faithful arms of volunteers.”

Leaning against the board was a stuffed monkey with an adorable face. I’ve been in there a few times recently and each time I’d find myself stroking its nose.

Yesterday the Volunteer Director and her assistant were stuffing envelopes and saw me. The director said: “Do you know that there is a story attached to that monkey?”

I am a Storyteller. I love stories. She had my unwavering attention.

“It happened a couple of years ago,” she said.

I settled in to listen.

“There was a little boy, about three years of age who went with his parents to see the July the Fourth fireworks in Baker Park. He had with him his very favorite toy in all the world. A stuffed monkey. That monkey had been with him since birth. The little boy took him everywhere. That night, when the family got home, they realized that the monkey had somehow been left behind. The child was inconsolable.

“The family did everything they could to find that monkey. They searched the park. They even got the Park Police involved. They broadcast their plight widely on Social Media asking for help finding the monkey for the sake of a broken-hearted three year old.

“The hospital gift shop manager saw these posts,” the Volunteer Director continued.

“She said to me, ‘I know where he got that monkey. It was from our gift shop. I’ll bet he was born here. We used to stock the very same toy. I’ll get in touch with the manufacturers to see if they can ship me another one.’

“And they did,” she continued. “They sent a complimentary monkey.

The parents were thrilled. The Park Police were thrilled. We had a small ceremony here in the hospital where the little boy was given the new monkey.

He was thrilled.

He knew it wasn’t his old toy that had three years of dirt, love, and tears embedded within it. So he decided to call it by a different name. But he was thrilled nonetheless. And immediately rubbed his face against the monkey‘s soft belly to start making it his own”

“What a wonderful story!” I exclaimed. “But if you gave the little boy that monkey, how come you have one here?”

“Ah!” Said the director. “Well, so many people read about the monkey and decided they had to have one. So the shop manager started stocking them again.”

She pointed towards the monkey with the strokable nose. “That is the last one.”

I looked at that answer to prayer leaning up against the notice board and I was whisked back to another answer to prayer at a hospital twenty four years ago. It was the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital in London, England, and my mother was dying.

She had been in the same hospital in a different room the month before for four weeks and we had filled every surface with flowers. My mother loved flowers. This visit, my father and I decided to do something different.

There was a large empty notice board in my mother’s new room. Every day when my father and I arrived we would come by South Kensington tube station where there was a kiosk selling postcards.

Amongst the ubiquitous pictures of London busses, Buckingham Palace Guards, and the Queen - God bless her - there were photographs by a fairly new-at-the-time photographer called Anne Geddes. She specialized in taking pictures of babies. Not in their Sunday best, oh no. In deliciously unusual ways.

Twins dressed in green in a huge fabric pea pod.

Triplets in enormous flowerpots with blossoms on their heads.

A single baby laughing on a floor covered in an abundance of pink roses.

Babies in flowers, and as flowers.

Glorious, glorious babies.

Incredibly, despite being so young, each infant’s tiny personality was captured by the enormous creativity and quirkiness of the settings.

My mother loved these postcards. Absolutely loved them! My father and I brought in a new one each day and I would put them up on the notice board. My mother spent hours staring at them.

One day, when the board was half full, my mother said.

“I’d really like to know more about the photographer. I want to know how she stages those babies.”

I said: “Why don’t we pray and ask the Lord to send you someone who can tell you more about the postcards.”

She agreed. We did. And my father and I left for the night.

This was pre- internet days. All the way home I prayed silently and fervently that the Lord would answer such a bold - oh let’s be real - crazy request.

Several days later, after we arrived clutching another postcard my mother said:

“Oh by the way! That prayer was answered. I forgot to tell you. A few nights ago as I was about to go to sleep a young orderly came in to clean. He saw the notice board and he said in a strong Australian accent. ‘Those are by Anne Geddes. I know her well. She lives down the road from my parents in Sydney. I used to be her photographic assistant. Would you like to know how she gets those babies to pose?’”

My mother’s face was alive with delight. She loved babies, was always full of curiosity and humor, and she loved stories.

That was the Irish in her.

She continued. “So he did. He sat by the side of this bed and explained how every one of those pictures was set up. It was fascinating. We had a wonderful time together. I haven’t seen him since.”

I don’t know if that young man was one of the many Australians who come to work in London for a couple of years before touring Europe then returning home, or whether he was an angel with an accent.

Either way he was sent by God as answer to prayer, and to give assurance to my mother, and to me, of His continued, unswerving, everlasting love and concern.

I thank God for that notice board.

And for answered prayers.

In this strange Coronavirus season, that seems to stretch on and on.

Then on some more.

May we see the answers to many prayers that we have been praying for a long time.

After all these months, when everything in us longs for normality, may we have the strength, wisdom, and grace to persist.

To withstand the storm.

To stand six feet back.

To wear the masks.

Even when we want to be done with restrictions.

When we want to stomp and cry with frustration like a three year old that has lost his beloved monkey.

Even then may we persist.

May the right people come into our lives at the perfect time, real or angelic, to assure us that we are not alone.

That we are loved.

Cared for.

Protected.

May we come to know the Healer, the Creator, in new ways. And - as the Good Book says - may we see His goodness and kindness move, encircle us, and change our hearts and circumstances in the land of the living.

May we see miracles and answered prayers all around us. May they be like neon signs on a divine notice board, pointing us towards the future.

A future filled with love and hope.

And as the sign-giving Lover of our Souls is already in our future, we can rest in this knowledge.

That the future will be good.

Pandemic Parables: Mysteries

Pandemic Parables: Mysteries
July 10th 2020

Mysteries abound at the hospital in Frederick, Maryland, where I am working as Resident Chaplain until the end of August. Some are more serious than others.

On the lighter side, I’ve had another strange phone call.

Some of you will remember that a few months ago the operator called me saying, “Chaplain Geraldine your husband is on the line.”

This wouldn’t be odd at all, except that I’ve never been married.

I told the operator so.

“That’s what we all thought,” said she.

Which I find pretty mysterious in itself.

It is unusual, methinks, but delightful, that the operators, who are always gracious and wonderfully efficient, but whom I’ve never met, know my marital status.

Apparently the chap was pretty insistent he speak to me. But when the operator went to connect him he had hung up.

Another one bites the dust.

I got another inexplicable call earlier in the week. Well I didn’t, our staff Chaplain from Kenya, Chaplain Peter, whom I admire greatly, did. The person asked for me and so he took a message.

He phoned me on my hospital cell phone. I was doing rounds.

“A woman just called asking for you. When you weren’t available she said you were to urgently call this number,” and he relayed it to me. “I asked for the name of the person you were to contact,” he continued. “She said you would know who it was the moment you heard the number.”

The digits meant nothing to me.

I looked them up on my personal phone wondering if a contact’s name would pop up.

Nothing.

How bizarre!

I called the number. A charming sounding man with a deep resonant voice answered.

I didn’t know him. He didn’t know me.

“I don’t remember calling the hospital,” he said. “And I can’t imagine any of my friends doing so on my behalf.

“Do you need a chaplain?” I responded.

“Noooo,” he said hesitantly.

We had reached a point where we both realized this was a very strange conversation.

“But you can stay on the line if you like,” he said finally.

I didn’t think pastoral care was what he had in mind. And so I graciously declined.

At that moment Chaplain Peter rounded the corner with two new-to-the-hospital interns in tow. (One had done a previous semester in Hospice.) He was giving them a tour. He confirmed the number, and then gave me the number of the woman who had placed the original call.

I called her. The line was malfunctioning. I tried several times. Each time the phone rang a few times before cutting off.

Was this a supernatural dating service gone askew?

Perhaps there is a simple explanation?

But in the meantime it remains a mystery.

Others are facing mysteries in the hospital this week.

The interns are among their number.

After a five-week hiatus where the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Intern Program was put on hold because of the virus, the Pastoral Care Department is approaching normal again. A normal where all the classes and supervisory sessions are on line. And when chaplains are physically in the hospital, masks and social distancing are in place.

The interns do classes on a Monday. For the foreseeable future these will take place in their own homes via computer. Every week each of them has a different day on duty in the hospital from 4pm to 9pm, followed by being on call overnight until 8am the following morning. In addition, they work one Saturday evening a month.

For one of the interns this is her first semester. Everything is squeaky new.

Chatting with her on her first day I was swept back to when I started as an Intern for the prerequisite semester needed before becoming a Resident. It seems so very long ago. An eternity.

In actuality it was last May. (My Residency started at the beginning of September.)

I am very unmedical, I had rarely been in a hospital before. It felt like I had entered a different world.

Everything was a mystery.

On walking the hospital’s halls I constantly saw things that bemused me. On one of my first evenings I did a double take when I saw a sign on a door.

I thought it said Insensitives.

“Oh my goodness,” I thought. A room for insensitive staff?”

I went back and read it again. It was Intensivists. It would be a long time before I learned that these are certified physicians who provide special care for critically ill patients.

Another time I walked past a door that was marked “Sound Physicians.” I spent far too long wondering where they put the unsound ones.

Later I was to discover that Sound was the name of an agency that supplies doctors to the hospital.

But the time when my imagination went into overdrive was one Wednesday evening near the beginning of my internship when I was the only chaplain on duty in the hospital.

The phone rang in the chaplain’s office.

“Chaplain Geraldine,” I answered.

“Chaplain,” said a female voice, “Stand by for an exhumation in about thirty minutes. The family has requested that a chaplain be there. I’ll call again when we are ready.”

At least that’s what I thought she said.

My first thought was. “How odd, for a hospital to be doing exhumations. And then my often over-fertile imagination took me to a misty night in England where eighteenth century grave robbers were digging furtively by the light of a flickering lantern…

I snapped out of my reverie.

“An exhumation?” I asked tentatively.

There was a silence on the other end of the line and then the now shocked voice said. “No. An extubation.”

“Oh silly me, of course,” I responded. “I’ll be ready when you call.”

And then I went and found a nurse to ask what an extubation was.

Now I’ve attended several such events where a patient is taken off a breathing tube and their family sit vigil expecting, but not knowing for certain if, or when, their loved one would slip into eternity.

I have learned it is an honor to be so close to the mystery of dying, death, and a family’s grief.

A profound, sacred honor.
 

There are other mysteries that abound in the hospital, besides the ultimate mystery of how magnificently and intricately the human body is put together.

A social worker, who has been in the hospital throughout the pandemic rather than working from home, recently talked to me about the mystery of human behavior.

She is a big hearted, enthusiastic woman who will do anything to care for the patients and their families who are under her care.

Rules have been a little relaxed in the hospital recently. The number of Coronavirus patients continues to fluctuate but is still relatively low – as of today we have six Covid-19 positive patients and five under observation. However during the height of the virus no visitors were allowed to visit Covid positive patients, and later only two people could visit a patient who was imminently dying.

My social worker friend had one patient with five offspring, all who were desperate to be by their mother’s bedside as she died. They would have done anything to all be there, but they had to make hard choices. It is heart breaking for the family, and painful for the social worker that such rules had to be enforced. And although she has been at many bedsides in full protective gear holding ipads so that families can say goodbye, she is acutely aware that nothing is like the touch of someone you trust and love.

However what concerned her the most during this season was the incredible fear that went with this dreadful virus. She has had adult children living in their parent’s house who refused to have their relative back because of fear. They would prefer to leave them in the hospital for weeks than let them return to the home that they love.

In another case, a man wept uncontrollably on the phone to my friend because he didn’t want his elderly mother, who had been released from the hospital, to have health care personnel come in and look after her. He was terrified of having people in the house in case they were contaminated with the virus. However he was unable to look after his mother by himself. Although he begged for a reprieve, he had no other workable solution for his mother’s care. In the end he had to accept the inevitable or my friend would have had to involve social services, something that she really did not want to do.

She is amazed how this virus has brought the best, as well as the very worst out of people.

This has been a strange season for all of us, and yes, frightening in so many ways. Full of changes, upheavals, financial insecurity, frustration, and for many, deep loneliness.

Our established ways of life have been upended. Our realities changed. We stay away from people because we love them.

Although some will even sacrifice a parent’s wellbeing because of fear.

The ground of our certainties has shifted beneath our feet. Is still shifting. Might be shifting for a long time.

Which reminds me of something that Steve Jobs said once: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

In other words you have to trust that as things have worked out in your life so far, so they will in the future. The ground will eventually stop shifting. There will be a solution to every looming problem, even though it might not be one that you have chosen. But perhaps that caterpillar of an answer that brought you disappointment and grief might eventually turn into a butterfly, achieving heights that you never dreamed were possible.

Or at least peace of mind and quiet joy.

It says in the Good Book that perfect love casts out fear.

There is a lot of fear in a hospital. Fear of dying, fear of letting a loved one slip into eternity, fear of a changed life less a limb or a lung. But I have seen peace slide into a room on the back of prayer and surround a patient, or a family, and in its own time, bring resignation, and with it acceptance.

Strength to face whatever lies ahead.

An inner knowledge, a quiet certainty that the dots will connect. And as love was there in the past, so it will be in the future.

May it be so for all of us.

May we feel and know the love of the One that loves us with an incomprehensible love, no matter where we have been or what we have done. May His love encircle us, push all the fear out of us, and take it far from us.

May God’s Mother Father love comfort us in these unsettling times. And provide for us.

And may we be conduits of the love that we receive. Bridges of love and understanding in a world that is far too segregated by color, creed, and political persuasion.

Then somehow we will be part of His answer.

And that indeed is a mystery.

Pandemic Parables: Both Sides

Pandemic Parables: Both Sides
Sunday July 5th 2020

As the old Joni Mitchell song says, I’ve been looking at life from both sides in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. I have been observing anew that people can see exactly the same thing, but from a completely different perspective.

Take July the Fourth - for example. This was my fourteenth year to celebrate Independence Day as a proud, naturalized American Citizen. Even with all its current challenges - opportunities - I love this nation, and I am grateful to be able to call it home. However, growing up in Britain, July the Fourth was no different from any other day, of course. And even though my first degree, from England’s Bristol University, was in history, the only reference I heard about the Revolutionary War was: “Mad King George lost the farm...”

History is written by the victors and we definitely lost that war.

A Pennsylvania-born fellow chaplain at the hospital, who spent several years living in England, told me that when over there she had a special ritual every Independence Day. With a reference to the incident that sparked the Revolutionary War, she would hand out tea bags to her bemused friends. As she did she’d quote the words spoken at the Boston Tea Party by the Sons of Liberty as they threw a whole shipment of tea into the harbor.

“No Tea! No Tea! Down with King George.”

Incredibly no one responded: “Off with her head!”

My brother, who has been a good naturalized citizen for a lot longer than me, jokes that July the Fourth is England’s Thanksgiving Day. Why? Because that is when they got rid of the Americans.

Ba Da Boom...

Depending on what side of the pond you stand, Independence Day looks completely different. I am grateful to have seen it from both sides now.

I’ve been seeing other things in the hospital from both sides recently.

Babies for example.

It was the same fellow chaplain who told me of the preparations that were being made in the birthing center at the end of last week.

All the newly hatched babies receive a beautiful, soft, white cap to keep their precious tiny heads warm. The caps are made with love in every stitch by members of our incredible hospital auxiliary. On Friday a nurse was preparing these caps for Independence Day births by threading red, white, and blue ribbons imprinted with stars through their soft fabric.

Those babies will be patriotic from the getgo!

Other aren’t so fortunate.

On Friday, not long after those caps were finished being adorned, there was a pediatric code blue. This means that a child under the age of eighteen is being brought into the hospital dangerously close to death. I’m the chaplain for the Emergency Department. When I got there I discovered the code blue was a baby, a few months old, and a team was desperately working behind a closed curtain to save the child’s life.

There was a lull in the normal frenetic atmosphere of the ED. Staff members were looking towards the curtain either praying or willing that baby to survive.

I joined the small cluster of nurses and social workers that I knew well. We were waiting for the parents to arrive.

“When I heard the code, before we knew the age of the child, I phoned up my husband and asked if our son was OK,” one of the nurses said in a voice hardly above a whisper. He said, you just phoned ten minutes ago and I told you he was doing good. Why would things be different now?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I had to know,” she said nodding towards the curtain, “because things can change so fast.”

One mother’s relief is another’s nightmare.

The police arrived. Depending on whether the parents live in the city of Frederick or the County either the police or sheriff’s department will have jurisdiction.

Whenever a child pediatric code blue is called, particularly for a baby, and the patient doesn’t have a medical history that would warrant such a call, the law is involved. A social worker told me that an officer will often drive parents to the hospital.

“How kind of them,” I said. “It must be difficult driving when you are so concerned about your child.”

The social worker gave me a knowing look. “They also want to keep an eye on them to make sure they’ll be available to be interviewed later.”

I looked towards the officers, who usually wait quietly to one side until the medical intervention has ceased before asking the parents questions. Sometimes, as in this case, one or more will be behind the curtain watching the team as the baby hovers between life and death.

One of the main tenets of the Clinical Pastoral Education course that I am taking is the saying “the patient is the book.”

In other words you are plunged into the real life of the hospital. You learn about how to handle situations correctly, as well as managing your own emotions that are triggered by that situation, afterwards, either in class or in a weekly individual supervisory session.

Months ago I misread a situation with a baby. I was standing outside the same curtained room flanked by a social worker and a young sheriff’s officer. We waited in silence as a medical team worked on the other side of the cloth divider. The parents had already arrived and were in there watching those incredible medical professionals save their child’s life.

I am a feeler, and I felt tension and deep emotion coming from the officer by my side.

“Is everything all right?” I said to him quietly.

“Yes,” he said too quickly. “Of course it is.” His professional veneer was firmly in place.

“I have my chaplain’s hat on,” I said. “So I was just checking. And I’m praying.”

We both carried on staring at the closed curtain. I felt some of the tension ooze out of him. Then, without moving he said softly. “I have a kid at home the same age. This one is hard for me.”

Moments later he walked away out through the stretcher entrance doors to get some fresh air, and he didn’t return for a long time.

There were several other officers in the ED department at the time, one in plain clothes. I stepped into the curtained room to be with the parents at the same moment that they were coming out. They said that yes, they would like to talk, and certainly wanted to pray but they didn’t want to go into a private room to do so. The distraught mother said she wanted to be as close to her baby as possible, but they had both needed a quick respite. The mother was in tears, the father looked stunned. So we prayed in the hallway.

Words came out of my mouth during that prayer that surprised me. They bypassed my brain. I heard myself praying that the baby would not suffer permanent damage from whatever had happened. That miraculous healing would take place. That the child would recover from trauma and be well.

Soon after I said amen the mother headed back behind the curtain, and the plain clothed sheriff’s officer politely told the father that he had some routine questions he needed to ask him.

I went to the third floor to see other patients but came down a little later to check on the family. They had already left. A nurse emerged from the same room they had been in.

“The child lived and has been flown to Children’s Hospital in DC,” she said. “It was a brain bleed. We found several signs that there was physical abuse, and it had been going on for some time, previously broken bones and the like. The law will investigate more heavily now.”

I had misread the young sheriff officer’s reaction. He clearly knew of the possible abuse situation, whereas I had no idea. It had never crossed my mind. It was my first pediatric code. I now realize he suspected the worst. And he was right.

A couple of weeks later I saw the father’s picture in the paper with an article giving the medical details from both hospitals. He had been arrested on suspected child abuse and was being held without bail at the County Detention Center.

I have no idea if the trial has taken place. We don’t know the end of patients’ stories unless we read about them in the paper. (I scour the obituaries every day hoping not to see the names of my more vulnerable patients...)

But I did find out one further piece of information about the father. While we were standing outside the same curtained room with a different baby last Friday, a social worker mentioned the abuse case. “I saw a picture of him in the paper before he was arrested. He was at Children’s and was holding the baby and smiling. He had started a GoFundMe for medical expenses for the child and had raised well over twenty thousand dollars...”

My fists clenched, and I understood with sudden clarity why the officer had to step outside and get fresh air.

I almost had to do the same.

One of the medical personnel came out from the curtain. The ICU nurse by my side had a quick word with her before the team member hurried back in.

“Oh, Lord! Let this baby live!” I said. My friend, the ICU nurse, a woman with the most enormous, loving heart, said: “I’m seeing things from the other side. I suspect there will be severe, permanent damage, and so my prayer is for a peaceful, gentle death.”

Minutes later her prayer was answered.

The parents arrived and were ushered into a private room with a truly wonderful social worker, and the doctor who had done the surgery. With the parent’s permission, I slipped into an empty seat.

The doctor gave the news of their baby’s death with compassion coming out of his pores. This couple was in shock. Tears slid down their faces, the mother shook in silent grief. The father asked questions. How could a heart attack happen to a child barely months old? The doctor answered every question with great kindness before leaving. The couple was young, a little awkward together. The father finally moved over to sit next to the mother to hold her. She fell into his arms and a high pitched wail came out of her mouth.

It was the sound of a heart breaking.

On Independence Day this year that baby was free. Returned to the One who had made him far too few months before, healed now, and eternally loved.

His brief presence on earth changed the lives of that young couple forever. Their grief will go on for a lot longer than their son lived.

In a much more joyous way, great change was brought to the lives of several other mothers this weekend as they held close a baby wearing a white cap festooned with July the Fourth ribbons.

When I think of that contrast of life and death over this holiday weekend, it is with the soundscape of the Joni Mitchell song “Both Sides” playing in my mind.

Particularly its lyrics:

“I've looked at life from both sides now

From win and lose and still somehow

It's life's illusions I recall

I really don't know life at all.”

This year of 2020 has shown us all that none of us know what will be around the next corner. Who would have ever thought that churches and restaurants would be closed? July Fourth parades and fireworks canceled - or at least severely curtailed?

And that a pandemic would sweep through the earth changing our way of lives; closing our institutions; postponing life events: separating us from family?

Looking at this year from both sides though, who would have thought that we would have so much time to clean our houses?

Bake sourdough, banana, and in my case, pumpkin bread?

To do jigsaws?

To eat together - in some of our cases - virtually?

To be the giver and receiver of a myriad kindnesses - out-workings of caring and love?

In this pandemic season we all have seen both sides of life and love and fear. As the Good Book says where there is darkness there is also great light. John 1:5 declares

“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it.”

Hurrah!

So even though, like Joni Mitchell, we might not know life at all, certainly not life in this new Coronavirus era, we can count on a few things. That the good we do, the kindness we spread, has more of an impact on pushing back the darkness than we can ever imagine.

So carry on baking, and gifting that comfort;

Knitting socks and sending them to surprised delighted recipients;

Reading a book to a child, yours or others, in person or over the web.

Write a note, send a card;

Leave tomatoes from your garden on someone’s door step,

Phone a long lost friend.

In a season when at times we feel powerless, let us push back the darkness with those things that are in our power to do. Something that might be simple for us, yet might mean the world to someone else. As simple as threading a ribbon through a baby cap.

When we join our pinpricks of light, of goodness together we will have a mighty light.

Our future might still be uncertain. We do not know what it will bring. But of one thing we can count on. The God of light and love will be there rejoicing at how we have fought fear and spread goodness one small action at a time.

How we have spread His light.

With great delight he will provide for us abundantly. That is His promise.

So whatever it holds. No matter what side we look at it from.

The future will be good.