"It's your fault, you and your God, that's why my brother is dead"

One night, in the early hours, I was called into A&E. A 45 year old man had suddenly collapsed and died. The family had asked for a chaplain to come and say some prayers. There were lots of very distressed relatives already there when I arrived. They asked me to wait for the rest of the family to turn up. In the end there were about 25 relatives present. The room in A&E is very small. The body was on a trolley. I stood beside it. The family spilled out of the room and into the corridor. I tried to project my voice so they could all hear. My practise is always to invite the family to anoint their relative and to say anything they want at the moment of anointing that honours their relationship with the deceased. They all took turns to file in and place their finger in the oil and anoint their relative. A man came forward. He didn’t put his finger in the oil. He just stared at me. Then he said really angrily that my God had killed his brother. He was pointing his finger in my face and saying “It’s your fault, you and your God, that’s why he’s dead.” I let him rant. Then I asked him if he had kids. He said he did. I asked him would he do anything to deliberately hurt them and he said no. I said I didn’t believe in the kind of God he believed in. I believed in a God who was a loving and kind parent like he was to his children and that bad things happen and we just don’t know why. With that he slumped at my feet and wept. His friends helped him up and led him away.

Violence doesn’t frighten me. I’m very familiar with it. I’m sure that helped me in that situation. It made me aware how vulnerable we are and what a target we are for people’s projections of what they think they believe in. I hope I did a good job that night by allowing the man his anger.