afterwards

The Germans have a little proverb I recently read: "Nacher is jeder klug!" In English it means: "Afterwards, everyone is smart."


Afterwards.....


After 14 months of CPE.  After 150* deaths, 42 overnights, 108 IPR's, 59 Advance Directives, 56 Supervisions,  lots of verbatims, team meetings, PAG sessions, and inter-office huddles.  After hundreds of lunches around the cafeteria tables, and over a thousand visits.  After laughter and tears and frustrations and ah ha moments.
(*very approximate numbering)


Afterwards.  I think of the people I love dearly that I didn't know 14 months ago.   I remember the patients that moved me, their stories becoming part of my story.  I reflect on the classes and discussions and ideas that enhanced and altered me.  I am forever indebted to and grateful for the people who supported me with love and phone calls and encouragement every step of the journey.  I am proud of the skills I've learned and the confidence I've gained.  And despite the long hours and grueling self work, I'm so very thankful for this opportunity.


Afterwards.  I see how, right at the end of four units of CPE, I got the chance to stay for one more summer unit.  And two days before that unit ended I got the job offer I had been wishing and hoping for.  Afterwards it looks so smooth and easy.  I wish I could have known that, and skipped the months of frantic hair pulling and panicky doubt.


Afterwards.  After On Call - The Spartanburg Year.  I've got a week off.  A week to do all the things I didn't do all year because I was driving down the mountain every day.  A week to sleep in or get up early, to putter and organize, to cook a little and drive my boys to school.  To see a movie with my friends and eat lunch with my sister in law.  I am very excited about this week!!!


And then I start over.  A new team, new buildings, new patients, new things to learn.  Maybe a fresh blog.  The beginning of a new Afterwards.  But as CPE guru Robin says "You take everything you've learned with you to the next place."  


I hope so!


The faithful love of the Lord never ends!  God's mercies never cease.  Great is God's faithfulness; with mercies beginning afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; that's where I will place my hope!”  Lamentations 3:22-24

parents

Early evening dusk was settling over the hospital when I got called to ICU.  I walked into a dim room to see a very thin, thirty-two year-old man breathing erratically.  Doctors had just told his parents that his brain function was gone. Life support had been removed.  Mom and dad were now saying goodbye.   They stood on either side of his bed, leaning over to speak softly into his ears and pat his face.  They held his hands while tears dripped down their faces.  


I had a flash back.  To New Years Eve 1999.  Our first baby boy was almost three months old. By midnight he was all tucked in his crib and had been sleeping for hours.  Too tired to go out, we had invited some friends over and were watching the ball descend in Times Square. 10-9-8- All of a sudden we knew where we wanted to be.  We rushed upstairs and leaned over that little man.  3-2-1.  Happy New Years!!!  We touched his tiny fists and stroked his fuzzy head.  We watched his chest move up and down and marveled at his perfectness.


I remembered all that in the seconds I was standing in the doorway of ICU room 6.  I wondered how many moments of awe these parents had had before choices, cars, buddies and drugs changed the trajectory and length of his life.  I wondered if they'd had any idea how much parenting might hurt.  Or if their hearts would break right out of their chests.   I wondered if I would ever have to stand over my boys in a hospital bed again.  Then I had to stop wondering and start chaplaining.


How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings... Luke 13:34

oh the places you will go!

Today was my final final evaluations.  We met at resident Andy's house, a parsonage in the woods, and curled up on couches and chairs to read our papers and listen to each other.  The content of the papers was to demonstrate what we have learned, how we have grown in our pastoral ministry, what has changed for us theologically and what impact the patients have had on us.  In between the evals there were breaks for donuts and sweet rolls in the morning and pizza, chips and guacamole in the afternoon.  There was lots of laughter and of course, a few tears.


I closed my five pages with this paragraph.  

"As I mentioned earlier the last few months have been very uncomfortable as I face transition and don’t know the end result. I feel that my faith has been tested, parts of my embedded theology unearthed, and my emotions have covered the gamet of despair, anger, peace and confusion. But through the doubts, questions, fears and tantrums I still feel a sense of God’s presence. My desire is to have the faith I read about with the fiery furnace. “The God we trust is able to save us….But even if He does not, (save us the way we have in mind) we will follow Him.” Daniel 3:17, 18"

When I collected my evaluations back, I saw that Taylor had circled we will follow Him and written under it  "oh the places you will go!  Peace my friend."  Thank you Taylor.

Tonya closed her eval with this reassuring quote.  I immediately copied it and have it visible to read often.

I beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.  Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noting it, live your way into the answer...  Rainer Maria Rilke


Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

coal

I got outside the hospital walls today with the home hospice chaplain.  We traversed spartanburg and surrounding areas to meet some new patients.


One door was answered by a dainty, elderly woman.  Muriel welcomed us in and introduced us to her husband sitting up in a big recliner.  He had just become a hospice candidate and they were still adjusting.


Conversation flowed easily.  She told us of her childhood in West Virginia.  Her father was a coal miner and walked to work every day.  One day, at the age of 17, she was washing dishes and staring absent mindedly out the window watching the stream of miners passing her house.  One young man caught her eye.  The next morning she was working in the front yard, strategically by the front gate when the miners passed.  The next day she was out front again.  The handsome, young miner stopped to say hi.  They were married five months later. 


Sixty two years have passed.  Muriel told me "we've had a good life together.  God is good. Lots of great times, lots of hard times.  You have to choose to be happy, you know?  We chose to be happy as poor coal miners.  We chose to be happy when we had young kids and had moved to Oregon to a better business.  We choose to be happy now with cancer.  It's still a choice."


Wise words Muriel.  And your happy spirit is infectious.  Thank you.


But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you.  Psalm 5:11

tears

I stood outside Neuro ICU talking with family members who were waiting for the 20 minute visiting time to start so they could see their loved ones.  I walked over to one man standing by the window.  I introduced myself and he immediately began sharing his story.  


He told me he and Hazel had been married for 58 years.  She had had a massive stroke on Sunday, out of the blue.  He called the ambulance who rushed her here.  The doctors had said the damage was "not compatible with life."  Everyone was waiting.


Tears streamed down his checks while he talked.  "I just can't imagine life without her.  What am I going to do?"  Ohhhhh.


When the double doors swung up, and the families surged inside I headed to the front desk and looked for Kelly.  She was there.  I said "Kelly, I just talked to Mr. Martin."  Her eyes welled up.  She said "It just breaks your heart, doesn't it?"


My heart was too heavy for much theological reflection at the moment.  But I thought about Mr. Martin later in Pastoral Care class when we read this quote.  It's thought provoking -


"People become most aware of their values when they reach turning points in their lives and must make choices or when they are thrust into decision making because of a crisis.  Prior to such moments, they may not have thought much about the values that orient them to the meaning and purpose of their lives.  At its simplest, theology is a way to talk about people's deepest values.


Do their religious faith and practices give people new life, or exacerbate already painful circumstances?  To what extent do people experience the fullness and complexity of God's presence with them?"  The Practice of Pastoral Care, Carrie Doehring.


This is what the Lord says:  I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you.  2 Kings 20:5