My first reaction was that maybe I was experiencing my first hot flash. I’m really not old enough to be going through that yet, but I figured, hey, it could happen! When I spoke to one of the nurses about it, though, she said that nausea isn’t usually associated with a hot flash. It was the other nurse’s reaction, though, that brought me to a complete halt. She gave me a broad smile and said, “so you’ve experienced it, too, huh?”
I’ve been more emotional lately than I usually am; maybe it’s because I’m close to finding a call in ministry and aware that soon my current lifestyle will be completely uprooted and reformed. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been actively working at “centering” myself with more ritual and more prayer, in order to bring a sense of authenticity that I’ve felt has been lacking lately. Or it could be because the son of my former pastor (who I knew in Arizona and haven’t seen in a decade) died in our ICU this past weekend. I’d recognized his name on the patient list & his wife, mother and sister warmly welcomed me, excited to be able to tell his father (who wasn’t there at the time) that a former parishioner and seminarian he’d counseled was now ministering to his son. He’d come in looking terrible, but had vastly improved by late last week, so it was a vivid slap in the face when I saw that he’d coded and died. The chaplain on call that afternoon said that he’d taken a massive turn for the worse that day and that his father had been here this time; the family had prayed together, then he was removed from life support. Aside from the upset, I was fiercely glad that I wasn’t on call that day, because I was certain I wouldn’t have been able to hold it together for the family. The son was only 53, and all I could think of was how much worse it hurts when death affects someone you know personally. Oh death, where is thy sting? I’d always tried to be optimistic, but I have to say that this week it’s really hurt like an SOB.
When I came in the day after I learned of his demise, I was told of a 50-something patient who was actively dying of AiDS in one of the regular hospital units, and to expect The Call at some point. It never came, but I DID get paged at 4am to attend the death of a 70-something gentleman with prostate cancer. I went through all the motions that I usually go through; our hospital is unusual in that the chaplains are those who complete the paperwork after a death. It’s extensive and can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour; this morning I finished it 30 minutes since there were no suspicious circumstances. The patient’s daughter and I spoke about his love of art; she said that at various times in the previous 24 hours, his right arm would lift straight up in the air and make stroking notions as if he were painting a canvas that only he could see. I was charmed by that; rarely do I hear such things from family, though it brought to mind a death I attended last October. A 60-something man who’d been hospitalized for 2 weeks following a severe stroke that left him speechless had been in the habit of doodling or writing gibberish on a pad they gave him; the staff had had trouble communicating. Six hours before his death, he picked up the pad and wrote clearly, “Jesus loves us” – his only communiqué since the stroke. There was no further expression before he died.
In the past, I’ve struggled with the questions about death and dying; we ALL avoid talking about it. But this morning, after some minutes hanging back and talking quietly with the daughter, I approached the bedside opposite the patient’s wife, who was still stroking his arm. I asked if she believes that he’s in a better place and without hesitation, she smiled slightly and said, “oh, yes.” I knew that he’d had several forms of cancer, and said something I sometimes say about how “there” he won’t have a physical body with problems. As his wife voiced her agreement, in an instant, I was suddenly engulfed in heat. I could literally feel myself burning through the core of my body, though my extremities felt cold. I also felt so faint that I was certain I’d be sick in a matter of moments. I hurriedly wrapped up and stumbled out of the room, then rested at the desk with my head in my hands for a full 2 minutes before moving. Was it a hot flash, I wondered? Do you usually feel sick along with the heat? Both nurses with whom I spoke are about 30; one figured I might be feeling the onset of a cold, but the other smiled and told me that she’s experienced this three times when a patient dies, including her own father. She is convinced that what I went through was experiencing this man’s soul or spirit finally leaving this world and making its transition. I’ve been through some strange experiences in the past, so it wasn’t completely unfamiliar to me, but I wasn’t sure I believe her. After I left the unit, I took the paperwork to the transfer center (where all ‘night shift’ deaths go) and spent time talking with the nurse on duty that shift. We talk a lot about faith and how it helps people, but this morning she spoke to me openly and in an amazingly serene manner about death and dying.
She was raised Southern Baptist, she told me, but found no faith in a tradition where all she ever heard was that people are evil and sinful and hell awaits us. At age 20, she became a Big Sister to a teenage girl who was Roman Catholic; one Saturday evening she attended mass with her young protégé and the first thing she heard the priest say was, “God Loves Us”. She’s been Catholic ever since with no regrets or apologies. One night she had a dream that an enormous black cloud had enveloped her parents and herself; the next day she learned that her father had died of a massive heart attack in his sleep. When her mother was living in a nursing home, she says that one day she literally smelled her mother’s presence all the way over here in New Orleans, though Mama was in Arkansas. She could sense it, hear it, and feel it. Mama’s doctor called a few hours later with the news that she’d passed.
The best comment of all was when I asked her what she thinks life after death is really like, and she said to me with the excitement of a child, “I really believe that when I die, my first reaction to it all will be to say to God, ‘why did you leave me down there so long’?” My brief experience in the subject of the Afterlife has me agreeing with her 100%. It’s difficult to keep this in mind, though, when all we know is what’s right in front of us. The nurse said she thinks that’s the reason some of us are down here longer than others; we have things to learn, to process, to go through, before we Go To A Better Place. Just the way she said it wrapped me in a warm blanket of reassurance, and made me feel a lot better about all the deaths I’ve attended. For the first time in my entire life, I finally feel that in this existence, we're still off stage, waiting for our cue, not quite ready to get out there under the bright lights and really live. But whether it’s the artist with cancer, the pastor’s son, or the man who writes only the most important thing to know, one thing I can say with utter assurance: death has no sting for me anymore. My only prayer is to continue learning what I need to know, and how to impart it to those I’ll serve, so that when the time comes for me to go to that Better Place, to get out there on stage, the fire of my transition will warm the heart of another person who feels death’s sting too strongly.
