Sitting on the Curb Together

Late last week I was at Daybreak on my regular Thursday walkaround. The place closes down at 11 to allow staff an hour lunch, so a number of people collect out back, smoking, napping in the sun, sitting and relaxing. This happens every weekday but I go there on Thursdays.

The volunteer coordinator calls it my "social day" because what I do is wander around in back and ask people how they are. Most times they answer in the affirmative and I might sit with them to catch up on stuff. But when they say "Not so good," I make a point of sitting or squatting with them to hear their story. 

That's all I do, listen to their stories. I'm not a social worker or RN or therapist, I don't have access to any resources and my knowledge of what's available, even a year after moving here, is woefully inadequate. But I can listen and I'm aware from my own time on the road that this is often something not available to lonely people; someone who will uncritically and calmly sit with them and listen to what's going on. I can't solve any of their issues and they're aware of that, but I can make them a little less lonely.

In seminary, this ministry was emphasized to me by the story of Job and his friends. While it's true they try to explain away his mistreatment by God by placing the blame on him, what they do before that is

set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

This is the critical part of ministry for me, that rather than immediately setting out to interpret his suffering, his friends sit with him and share his misery. For a week and silently. That is truly sharing in someone's grief.

I don't try to put myself in the shoes of Job's friends because they are convinced of their own righteousness and eventually give in to judgement. But I do accept the wisdom of their first actions, to sit on the ground and be with the one who is suffering.

So this past Thursday I noticed one of my regulars sitting on the curb away from the property and drinking a beer. She looked unhappy, so when I could I wandered over and sat down, said I was glad to see her and asked how she was. 

Her issue was nothing new to her, it's a problem she's been trying to solve since January, and I'd heard it before at length. But I didn't say anything about that, I just listened. After she finished her beer she stood up to go inside and we walked over together. She said, "Thanks for sitting there with me." I said, "That's what I do, it's about all I'm good at." 

That's when she said something that floored me. At first I was unsure I'd understood her and asked "What?" She turned around and looked me full in the face and said, enunciating every word, "You keep people from ending their lives."

I don't know if she meant overall people who do that or just me, although I'm certain in that moment she meant just me. It pierced me. That is, I believe, the closest I'll ever come to a personal divine message.

 

What will live on

For decades, since I was a child, I've thought of myself as a writer. It's the activity and craft I've practiced all my life. And I've always thought what I was meant to do was write an Important Work.

I don't know, that may still be ahead of me. But I've also always thought that was my way to make my mark on the future. I suppose we all think that in some way: I know I'll die but how do I live forever nonetheless? Parents, I think, have this uppermost in their minds as their children, and then their children's children, grow.

But I've come to realize that immortality is not immortal. I mean, I read things suggesting that civilization or even humanity as we recognize it may not survive our great-grandchildren, and I think that such an attempt on my part is so much ego, an investment it's not in my interest to make. My mark, instead, is meant to be in the mark I leave on other people's lives. This is what I do that will lie on. I mean, really live on.

What I do, gently shepherding people into death as best I can, is more important than anything I might otherwise do. Like writing, it is something I do well, but unlike writing it isn't subject on other people for its practice. I receive from my ministry a sense of contentment of my self I've never known before. It's much the same sensation I feel when one of my beasts, heretofore leery of me, suddenly lays its head on my arm and sleeps. I am at peace with the world and know what I do matters.

This takes a tremendous burden off me. I don't feel as if I'm cheating someone (if I'm honest it was this sense of ego gratification) by not writing regularly. I feel I have more time for reading, for walking, for enjoying things like coffee and music. Admittedly, I still squander that time shamelessly in surfing or watching TV, but I'm learning to curtail those.

None of this means I'll stop writing, especially here. In fact, I suspect it will clear up more time for me to blog, as meaningless as that may also be, given the vagaries of both audience and (electric) power, because I don't need to pay attention to what I think are important events or things to write on (although I will continue focusing on the corruption of the Trump administration and the frustrated anger of people on the wrong side of history recognizing their own irrelevance). And to salve my ego which, let's face it, is as demanding an urge as hunger or thirst. Besides, as Walter Miller, Jr long ago taught us, there's no telling what scrap from the past the future might discover is important. 

Always be the helpers

I'm not generally one who reads advice columns, but this one, aimed at parents, nudged at me, making me want to share it.

Too often, it strikes me that the person writing in for advice is asking for something specific to him or her, a response to a problem that's unique to him and him alone. But this mother's plaint is common, and not just to parents. I struggle, too, with the question of how to effect optimism with friends and others without, as she puts it, "overloading" them.

Carvell Wallace puts it plainly: "To be a child in 2018 is to know that the adults have completely abdicated our collective responsibility to make a decent world for our kids." Game, set, and match. Abdicated is the polite way to put it; the truth is we have, as a species, gone out of our way to fuck this world up with a passion.

Her suggestion, taken from a now-famous Fred Rogers' quote, is spot-on: In order for our children to find the helpers, we must be he helpers. What good does it do them if we're all behaving like chickens with our heads lopped off or, worse, as if the issue doesn't matter? America claims it hates a bully, and goes out of its way to elect one. We say children are our future and are important to us, and defund and beggar the very schools and programs meant to help them grow into that future.  We insist school be a safe place for them, and offer nothing more than thoughts and prayers to keep guns out of them. 

Everyone knows kids aren't stupid and we all like to brag about how intelligent ours are, but then we behave as if they're not only dim but blind and deaf too. The note that little ones have big ears and eyes is so common it's trite, but it's not only their own parents they're listening and watching. It's what we mean by having compassion: When you're outside your home, act like there's a kid watching and mimicking you. I do this myself. I feel better for it. Because there often is one somewhere. And they will eventually treat me the same as they see me treating others 

She

It's fitting I write this post now, the weekend we observe Veteran's Day and nearly a week after the incredible wins by members of the transgender community to important local and state offices.

I was driving between patients when I received an email that we had a new admission to hospice. Nothing struck as different until I saw both that she was nearing the active phase of dying (yes, there is such a thing and it is different from the state we are normally in), and that, while a cousin was her Power of Attorney for Health, there was otherwise no family involvement. It's true some people prefer to die alone but everyone should have the option of dying with someone who cares.

I had a conference call and another patient scheduled for the afternoon, but as the other chaplain covering that area was conducting a funeral, I offered to reschedule the patient. The hospital was 90 minutes from my area, so I listened to my call while driving; my other patient was eager to reschedule as she was feeling ill.

Over the course of the call I found the new admission was transgender, probably the reason for lack of family involvement, and was dying from pneumonia and was MRSA positive. This means gowning and gloves both for our protection and other patients. She was still in the ICU when I arrived and was unresponsive until I sat beside her and touched her arm, at which point she jolted awake. She was bony and angular and her clavicle stood out above her hospital gown.

I explained who I was, touching my ID so she could read if she couldn't understand. She motioned for a wipeboard near her. She couldn't speak any longer. She asked if I could speak up. I said of course. I asked if she was afraid and she didn't respond or look my way, so I asked if she'd like to hold my hand. In response she put her large bony hand in my gloved one, which I then covered with my other hand.

That was the only time I was to see her conscious. She drifted off to sleep a few minutes later and I held hands with her until she twitched hers away. A short while later the nurses came to move her to another room, outside the ICU, and she fidgeted several times in what seemed discomfort rather than pain. I made plans with my family fellow chaplain to relieve me at 9.

Imagine then my surprise when a small woman walked into the room room and said hello. She turned out to be a friend of the patient who was called by the cousin. She had driven from work in Stevens Point, about an hour west, to sit with her for the night. I got her up to speed, contacted the rest of my team, and headed home.

The next morning I called her friend, with whom I'd exchanged numbers, and found her friend had lived through the night. But she hadn't regained consciousness and wasn't likely to. I arranged to relieve her at 1. But when I arrived she had been replaced by another friend who had brought with her a local minister. He agreed to provide a memorial for her. I offered to continue to sit with her but they wanted to remain beside her another few hours.

I sat in the hallway and made phone calls and emails. Eventually they left for food and some rest. I sat holding my patient's hand. I had found things about her in the meantime, that she had been dishonorably discharged from the Navy, she had served during Desert Storm, and had prized the jacket she retained. She had been married and divorced twice, and had done something that put her beyond the love of her siblings and children. There would be no sudden appearance by family.

When I sat with her this last time I told her she was surrounded by people who love her enough to be with her. There might be an afterlife and there might not. But there was nothing she could have done to put her beyond the love of what she might join after her death, God, The Eternal, the universe, whatever it might be. She was as worthy of love as anyone.

Her friend and the pastor returned at six and I made ready to go. Before leaving I held her hands again and repeated her worthiness. She squirmed a little, perhaps saying goodbye. I left while they sang to her. A few hours later I received an email that she had died with her friend at her side.

This is why I do what I do.

pastoral clinical week 15

CPE REFLECTION WEEK 15

I met with one of my residents at her mother’s viewing and funeral this morning. It was as good an experience as I could have hoped for and helped me to recognize some of the ways in which I’ve been privileged during this experience.

First, the preparations for making her aware of her mother’s illness and death were more complicated than they needed to be. But this should be expected, I suppose, when dealing with a family whose relationships are as riven with bitterness and suspicion as those between her sister, the resident’s husband, and the resident’s children are. The complications were magnified by distrust between the sister, her other sister, and her husband, each insisting someone else should be the one to tell her about her mother’s illness and death, but none willing to let an outside source do it. Finally, her husband visited and told her about it, and then we went into the question of whether she wanted to attend the funeral and who would take her.

But this morning’s experience made all that moot. She was welcomed into the grieving group in a way I wasn’t entirely expecting. I have sometimes wondered if her husband is behaving lovingly toward her in response to what he hopes for others to see; but I saw some behaviors between them that seemed genuine, and I didn’t think he could know anyone was watching or listening to him. They were little things, like his gentle wiping of the drool that pools in pools in the cleft between her chin and chest (which is something I also do repeatedly, thinking of her dignity) and running his hand soothingly over her hair. At one point, while he took her to use the bathroom and I was watching outside the door to ask anyone approaching to wait a few moments until she was finished, one of her sisters-in-law said she had to take her child in to throw up, and in the moment when she opened the door, I could see her husband slowly and carefully lowering back into her chair. I am convinced that he is genuine in his dedication to her.

Similarly, a woman who grew up with my resident, went to college with her and with whom she shared an apartment for years, and who is a nurse now in Buffalo, came directly to her when she walked into the funeral home, got down on one knee to be at her level, hugged her, and then spent most of the funeral talking with her, running down memories and experiences, and at times crying with her. The affection in her eyes was wonderful to see.

Her children, with whom there are apparently many issues—I discovered in talking with them that both had spent the intervening years since her debilitating aneurysm living with their father—most particularly their unwillingness (according, separately, to both her sister and husband) to visit her, attended the funeral. (My resident has three children and a fourth adopted daughter whose name has not come up and I didn’t think it was prudent to ask about her. The two who live closest came.) Her eldest son came directly up to her when he came in but awkwardly stood next to his father while he said hello, and then just as awkwardly stood around during the viewing, the funeral, and the social time afterward. Her daughter, who lives in St. Paul, pointedly ignored her mother when she came in, managing to catch her dad during one of the times while I sat with my resident alone while he mingled, and then passed without looking at her when she went in to sit down. (She was looking at me out of her single good eye then and didn’t see her walk past.) But after the funeral she came over to her mother and took her hands and got down on her knees to hug her. She looked up at me as if to tell me, “My daughter. This is my daughter.”

If she didn’t have a good time, which I doubt anyone can say they have when they attend their mother’s funeral, at least she didn’t have a bad time. This whole experience affected me profoundly, as I felt privy to a few hours’ window into the intimate and previously functional life of someone who’s entered my life as a person in need of constant, sometimes overwhelming, care.

On my drive back to the facility, I reflected on how many intense but common experiences I’ve been allowed to share with residents during this CPE. I’ve visited people in the hospital, spent time with them while they were most vulnerable and afraid of death, sat their bedsides while they were in the process of dying and then handled their bodies after they died, talked with them about their families and their relationships with other residents, talked them down when they’ve been angry or frustrated. Outside of birth and marriage, these are the most intimate and bewildering experiences most of us have and most ministers go through with their congregants, only I have been privileged to see them in the course of a few months’ time. I am humbled by their power.

clinical experience reflection week 4

CPE REFLECTION 4
The incident that’s on my mind the most right now, perhaps because it has been simmering for the second half of the week and came to fruition on Saturday, is what I should tell the roommate of one resident who is very close to that person—think brotherly—but who, because of HIPA regulations and privacy concerns, can’t be told that his friend is not doing as well as everyone expected.

It’s not as if the resident is dying (although all of us are dying), but when he went in for routine surgery it was expected he would be discharged after a few days and all would be well. His roommate could be told he was doing fine, he sent his affections, he’d see him soon, all that. The roommate has a tendency to take into himself the concerns he has for his friend and internalize them, apparently fixating on his worries, until it absorbs him. When I saw him last, early Saturday afternoon, he was in a pretty cheery mood, smiling and saying, “Tell him I’m glad he’s okay and I’ll see him soon.”

The truth, on the other hand, is that the resident is not doing as well as everyone hoped. His blood pressure is lower than it ought to be. He’s being fed oxygen by a tube which is strapped to his head. He reports he’s in a lot of pain. Mentally, he’s more alert than he was the first day I visited him, but he’s reduced to answering “yes/no” questions by shaking or nodding his head. He remains in intensive care and his nurse tells me it will be at least several weeks before he’s allowed to come home.

Given all that, what’s my response when his roommate asks, “How is he?”

cookies

you could get carpal tunnel waving to people in this town. I've been in the thick since 11 last night and it seems that, besides listening to my father tell me variations on the same local news he told me during my last visit here, is all I have been doing.

he's known here, though, and that's important to him. not as some local celebrity but as "uncle harold," a regular and constant, consistent presence in the village. I've written previously about the effect this has on him, this being acknowledged and recognized as a member of the community and that hasn't lessened with my mother's death, only increased. we sat tonight on the porch of the local store and I counted at least 2 dozen cars and trucks whose drivers lifted a hand at sight of my dad (not a one in the direction of my cousin or his wife, owners of the porch we sat on, and sitting on the other end; my dad remarked later on that, saying, "well, they don't wave or say 'hi' to any of those people so I don't know what they expect otherwise").

last night, before I arrived, his new neighbor got drunk and tried using the mailbox on the corner like an atm (or so my dad interpreted his shoving his bankcard in and quickly out several times) and before anyone else could see he brought him up onto the porch to sit and chitterchatter until he sobered, and failing that took his hand and walked him to his trailer where my dad called his wife out to take him inside, telling her he "ought to lie down for a while". today the neighbor came by with a sheepish look and a plate of stillwarm homebaked cookies.

at 1 point in my life I fantasized I could live in a village this tiny and empty. I don't know now if I could, but I could live with stillwarm homebaked cookies.

a bird in the hand

the summer we moved here to the rim 10 years ago my father-in-law and I fenced in part of the side yard off the deck leading from a 3-season porch in order to let the dogs roam free. as a part of that, we put in a dogflap on the original screen door, and when that flap eroded after the 1st winter, we just left the hole open, and when the door itself started falling apart, I replaced it with a heavy wooden windowed door which, because it isn't the right height and won't sit right on the jamb, remains ajar about 6 inches, wide enough to let the dogs through and held to in the wind by a bungee cord.

naturally the gap doesn't let in only the dogs but an assortment of insects and flies and, about 1ce a day in the summer, birds. this is a common phenomenon here. when the dog flap was covered birds were always hopping in under the material and soon we'd see a whispy, fluttering shape darting from 1 side of the porch to the other, the dark movement brilliant against the white paint of the inside of the porch and the multiple windows that let in the afternoon sun.

generally my wife calls me to let the bird out. I am the official bird-letter-outer since I've got the patience for it. my 1st act is to open the door wide and herd the intruder toward it so he or she will make a dash for freedom. but birds are not apparently very good at seeing the difference between an open and closed door and continue to smash themselves against the brightness of the windows instead.

after a few minutes, worried that they'll hurt themselves by braining their noggins against the glass or snapping their own necks or exhausting themselves in vain until they suffer a heart attack, I'll catch the bird and release it. this isn't as difficult as it might sound. again, it's a patience game. I follow the bird from window to window to corner to floor, walking slowly and lightly, cooing reassurances all the while. the tone and words aren't really intended to affect the bird, who probably thinks it's all threats and bluster anyway, but reassure me that I can do it.

sometimes this takes 10 or 15 minutes. I have the time. when the bird is against the window or on the floor or in a corner I cup my hands around it gently, muttering all the while, and grip it as tightly and as loosely as possible. the feeling of bird-heart against my palms is indescribable. it is like holding a beating heart must feel. sometimes the bird pecks against my hand, sometimes drawing blood, and that's okay. don't go gently, I tell it in my head, if you think this is the end fight it. life should fight.

I step to the open door and fling my hands open and the bird flies like a shot into the trees and beyond. if birds have the equivalent of religion I like to think of myself as somewhere in it, not a savior but a boddhisattva. I've caught and held dozens, maybe a hundred or more birds like this, even hummingbirds which feel like holding a tiny buzzing cell phone. then I close the door and wash my hands.