Eulogy for Sean

In the fifteen years I have been a chaplain, I have heard from various people, “oh, I don’t know how you do it! I could never do what you do!!” It’s difficult to explain why a person would choose the vocation of offering emotional and spiritual support to someone in a health crisis or terminally ill. What chaplaincy does is offer a chance not to experience someone else’s crisis, but to build relationship with that person and, if possible, learn from that person. Through the miniature community that is formed by this relationship, both of us learn and grow and the bond that is formed is something far more unique than anything that I ever found in a 9-to-5 desk job. Of course, it’s a lot tougher emotionally, but that is something that Sean always understood, so it’s one reason we had a good connection.

It was tough to get a foot in the door with Sean at first; he was skeptical of what I as a chaplain was going to say and it was about a month before we finally met in person. Once he knew I had no agenda, he relaxed and began to share with me who he is. He never spoke about the chaotic upheaval he went through as a child. As far as he was concerned, only the present mattered. Over the year plus that we met, he was able to process what he was going through and face some of the toughest decisions any person has to make – not because I met with him, but because he was strong enough to do this by himself and I was privileged to be a support while he did so. Looking back over the many times we met, the overriding theme is that he was always concerned about other people, never himself. From his partner Erik to the elderly people he felt were being treated unfairly in a group home to the homeless living near him, he constantly expressed concern for others’ well being but rarely his own.

He liked to watch “My 600 Pound Life” on The Learning Channel and as we spoke about it, I realized how intuitive he was and how he saw parallels between his own struggles with alcoholism and the struggles of people who are morbidly obese. He was aware that it’s a disease and not a weakness, and also that people pass judgment without knowing a person. The compassion that drove him was evident when he talked about this.

In the last few months, he began declining physically. He also began verbalizing that he was not going to be healthy enough to receive a liver transplant, but that he was okay with it. Several times he told me that he sensed Erik sort of watching over him, waiting off in the wings. While he was not a religious person, he told me that he feels we do have some sort of further life after this one and it gave him hope. It was this hope, I believe, that gave him the strength finally to take that last big step toward his next existence rather than continue to hover between this existence and the next. No doubt that Erik was waiting, with a beautiful smile, to welcome him.

The best thing to say about Sean is that he fully understood what it means to live life as a good person, and while he struggled to care for himself, his compassion toward others could never be doubted. That’s why a part of him will always stay with me, and I hope that that compassion will manifest itself again in my future as I build relationships with others. My prayer is that this legacy he has left will bloom in others he knew and loved. God Speed to you, Sean, and we will see you again.