A Day in a Chaplain’s Life…
Almost thirty years ago I answered my pager and headed up to the eighth floor. When I entered the room I found it filled with people, sitting or standing around the hospital bed where the family patriarch lay dying. I asked the family to gather with me for prayer, and together we prayed for the patient struggling for his every breath and for them as well – for their comfort and peace.
Amid the many expressions of grief and professions of mourning, one strident young voice stood out. Sounding angry and bitter, this thirty-something daughter stood clutching the bed rail and facing her family. She told them his dying wasn’t changing who he was—a cruel and unloving man who had caused every one of them pain. They looked away from her, not meeting her eyes but not disputing her words. I knew that this man had a life-long reputation in the community that matched her words.
Within the next few minutes life ended for that man. As family members moved around the bedside, the young woman left the room and stood standing alone in the hallway outside. I went to stand with her as the nursing staff entered the room. She and I walked down the hall and she turned to talk to me. “I don’t know why they’re all crying and carrying on,” she said. “As far as I could tell, they hated him, and he hated them. He hated everyone, I think.” She paused, then suddenly burst out, “You know, he was such a mean son of a _________, I thought he’d never die!”
Horrified, she stopped. Shocked and speechless, I stared. We looked at one another for a very long minute, then – horror of horrors – we both began to laugh. Unexpectedly and inextricably, the moment was funny with that weird humor some call gallows humor. She laid her head on my shoulder and laughed until she once again was crying. When she pulled away I took her hand and said simply: “No guilt.” She nodded her head. “Yes,” she said, smiled, and turned back toward the room where her family was gathered.
After checking in once more with the rest of the family, I left the unit. It took me quite a while to forgive myself for my laughter. It’s true that the moment was unique in my experience, and I’ll never fully understand why it was funny – but it was. I’ve often wondered how the young woman with the penchant for straight talk had fared.
And I’ve come to think that there’s a place for that kind of honesty. It isn’t comfortable, and certainly it isn’t politically correct. I never could have said what she said – I did not have the right. But she - who had lived with her father and as part of that family –she had that right. Her truth was the knowledge that death did not change the man her father had been; death did not somehow transform a lifetime of hurting others. She would not bend her experience and her feelings to social convention, and I remember another like that. Jesus, who used phrases like “whited sepulcher” – who chased greedy men from the Temple with a whip –I think he would have understood this young woman. She grieved, but her grief was not the simple grief of a loving daughter mourning a loving father. It was too complex for that—but it was honest.
I will never be entirely comfortable with what happened that day; it’s a little prickly thing in my mind and heart that cannot be smoothed over. But I know I will not forget.
Almost thirty years ago I answered my pager and headed up to the eighth floor. When I entered the room I found it filled with people, sitting or standing around the hospital bed where the family patriarch lay dying. I asked the family to gather with me for prayer, and together we prayed for the patient struggling for his every breath and for them as well – for their comfort and peace.
Amid the many expressions of grief and professions of mourning, one strident young voice stood out. Sounding angry and bitter, this thirty-something daughter stood clutching the bed rail and facing her family. She told them his dying wasn’t changing who he was—a cruel and unloving man who had caused every one of them pain. They looked away from her, not meeting her eyes but not disputing her words. I knew that this man had a life-long reputation in the community that matched her words.
Within the next few minutes life ended for that man. As family members moved around the bedside, the young woman left the room and stood standing alone in the hallway outside. I went to stand with her as the nursing staff entered the room. She and I walked down the hall and she turned to talk to me. “I don’t know why they’re all crying and carrying on,” she said. “As far as I could tell, they hated him, and he hated them. He hated everyone, I think.” She paused, then suddenly burst out, “You know, he was such a mean son of a _________, I thought he’d never die!”
Horrified, she stopped. Shocked and speechless, I stared. We looked at one another for a very long minute, then – horror of horrors – we both began to laugh. Unexpectedly and inextricably, the moment was funny with that weird humor some call gallows humor. She laid her head on my shoulder and laughed until she once again was crying. When she pulled away I took her hand and said simply: “No guilt.” She nodded her head. “Yes,” she said, smiled, and turned back toward the room where her family was gathered.
After checking in once more with the rest of the family, I left the unit. It took me quite a while to forgive myself for my laughter. It’s true that the moment was unique in my experience, and I’ll never fully understand why it was funny – but it was. I’ve often wondered how the young woman with the penchant for straight talk had fared.
And I’ve come to think that there’s a place for that kind of honesty. It isn’t comfortable, and certainly it isn’t politically correct. I never could have said what she said – I did not have the right. But she - who had lived with her father and as part of that family –she had that right. Her truth was the knowledge that death did not change the man her father had been; death did not somehow transform a lifetime of hurting others. She would not bend her experience and her feelings to social convention, and I remember another like that. Jesus, who used phrases like “whited sepulcher” – who chased greedy men from the Temple with a whip –I think he would have understood this young woman. She grieved, but her grief was not the simple grief of a loving daughter mourning a loving father. It was too complex for that—but it was honest.
I will never be entirely comfortable with what happened that day; it’s a little prickly thing in my mind and heart that cannot be smoothed over. But I know I will not forget.
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