distressing disguise

Well it isn't always lovely in the hospice world.


I visited a patient this week who has refused to wash her hair in the last 6 weeks.  Not a pretty site. I spent 40 minutes in a horder's living room, perched on the arm of the couch that I had located and then cleared off.  I hiked through a junk yard to get to a new patient's house.  I can diagnosis the rotting black teeth of a meth addict and the hoarse raspy voice of a heavy smoker.  Every month I call on a man who expresses his anger at his disease by urinating on the floor.  And I regularly meet with people who are clinging to their independence by feeding themselves despite their fading eyesight and shaking hands.  There is no shortage of snotty noses, phlegmy coughs, crusty skin and a bed sore or two. Oh dear.


Yesterday I met with a couple for the first time.  The patient was frail and slumped in her wheelchair.  When I greeted her, she babbled nonsensically, drool dripping down her chin and onto her blouse.  Her husband sat beside her and energetically shared their family history and details of her illness.  His hand never left her shoulder.  He repeatedly made eye contact with her as he shared her story.  "This is an amazing lady."  He told me.  "We have been married for 53 years and she is my best friend."  And he kissed her forehead.


I was reminded again that there are so many ways to see people.  I am so inspired as I watch our CNAs bath and comb and trim and love on the variety of patients we visit.  I admire the way our doctors restore dignity and our nurses give comfort in gentle, friendly doses.  I enjoy visiting alongside our social workers and listening to their interested questions.  I love that our job is to physically touch people.   To hug and pat, and hold hands and rub feet.  I want to be more generous and less wincing with my love and my vision.


Someone once asked Mother Teresa what she saw as she walked the streets of Calcutta where the poorest of the poor lived, what she saw when she looked at the orphans, the starving, the dying. This is what she said: "I see Jesus in a distressing disguise.


That disguise is all around us.  Jesus in gummy smiles and wizened hands.  Jesus in diapers and wheelchairs.  Jesus in poverty and pain.  Somehow Jesus shines through it all.  If I take the time to look.  To see the beauty of a person's soul, their courage, their story.


This quote reminds me of how worthwhile it is to see this way.


"The supreme religious challenge," says Rabbi Sacks, "is to see God's image in one who is not in our image, for only then can we see past our own reflections in the mirror to the God we did not make up."