Those Who Were In Anguish

The past several weeks have been so trying that I feel exhausted in every way one can feel drained. The other two chaplains with whom I work were gone from the office for several days, leaving nearly a dozen new patients to be assessed within the standard 5 day period. In addition to this, charting had to be done and routine visits with patients already on service were to be seen to and I felt as if I were running a marathon and losing badly. As a professional chaplain, I’m held to a higher standard of behavior than many people; others come to me to vent about such frustrations, but when I find myself in similar circumstances it’s difficult to commiserate with my coworkers unless it’s the other chaplains. When they aren’t there, it becomes a pressure cooker for me. Pressure builds and builds and while I manage to siphon it out in small portions away from the office, it hasn’t disappeared entirely. Adding to the pressure was the coming weekend, when I would be on-call for 48 hours. In other words, if a patient dies between Saturday morning and Monday morning, no matter the time, I am called out to respond to the death. The past several months my on-call weekends have been peaceful, but since it is December now I knew better than to expect that it would be tranquil.

Sure enough, I was called just after 9am to take care of a 70-something woman whose 98 year old mother had just died in a residential care facility. Despite her advanced age, Betty admitted that she hadn’t finalized the funeral arrangements yet because she had a tough time coming to terms with the loss of her mother. I helped her settle things, then took a long nap. Late in the evening, just before midnight, I was called to a private residence where a 99-year-old patient had finally made the transition. Her nephew needed to talk a lot, and as much as I had enjoyed meeting with this patient, I was fighting to keep my eyes open at 1:45am. Sunday I was kept busy assessing two new patients during the day, then I was called a third time at 1:30am on Monday to attend to the family of a 60-something patient who had been on service only a few days. She was a woman who always pursued a healthy lifestyle including diet and exercise, but unfortunately that didn’t stop the cancer. It left me feeling anguish; her 40-something daughter was on the hospital bed with Mom the entire time I was there, holding her like a life-sized doll. I said what I have said several times in these situations: “there aren’t any words that can help, but I am so very sorry.”

After returning home at 3am I got about three additional hours of sleep before working a full regular day at the office, and then continuing to work through the week to get caught up. The thing that kept me going was knowing that I was on vacation at the end of the day Friday. Flying to Tucson to spend an entire week with my family, going to the Gaslight Theatre for another great vaudeville Christmas play, baking like a madwoman for my family….anticipating all these things was what kept me afloat. I focused on the peripherals that have helped me cope with stress in the past. It never occurred to me that I was ignoring the most obvious way to deal with pressure, until I met Anais.

Late Thursday afternoon, I drove out to the rural area in eastern Los Angeles county where she lives with her husband and family. She is only 37, but appears older, due perhaps to the cancer that is eating her body. She had attempted radiation, but it was unsuccessful to the point of being damaging, so she told her family she wants no more treatment and that she wants to die peacefully at home. Looking at her swollen face, I realized I had absolutely nothing in my ministerial bag of tricks. There was nothing I could say that felt genuine. The emptiness that engulfed me was something I have rarely felt. For the first time in my career as a chaplain, I started crying in front of a living patient.

Anais seemed very moved by my tears, whereas I felt I was being unprofessional. Pulling on my big girl clerical collar, I asked how she copes with this. She spoke openly and with a very deep theology about how she has learned over the past year to accept that she will be dead before she is 40, that she will never see her children grow up, get married or have children of their own. The phrase that stands out the most is: “when I get to feeling sorry for myself, I think of Jesus and what He endured on the cross for me. It helps me keep it in perspective.” This statement so awed me that I responded, “sometimes I find that the patients I meet are actually chaplains to me.”

I was reminded of Anais’ words again this morning when I attended worship services at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Tucson. Pastor Jim Toole said that he has in the past labored under the misconception that he must be perfect in order to be right with God, a statement that really resonated with me. Many times I have felt that I am not allowed to err, that to be angry or frustrated over MediCare regulations isn’t seemly for a pastor, that to be anything other than always serene and low key is unacceptable for a chaplain. Pastor Jim said that we must bring our entire, imperfect selves (anger, frustration, stress and all), to the table in our faith walk. It’s then that we encounter the authentic God, he said. Tears welled in my eyes when he said that, because I realized that I had such an encounter when I met Anais. Through her, God reminded me that we all go through times like this. Even Jesus. What He endured was far worse than what I have been going through and He not only endured it, He conquered it. This is the sort of perspective that builds faith.

But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish….the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light Isaiah 9: 1, 2