At the time of writing this my full time colleague had been off or several weeks and I was feeling the strain of working so much on my own. In my opinion it is not good to work in such a demanding role in isolation. I had built up some good relationships around the hospital and could go to some of my colleagues for support. This is not the same though as working with someone who you share a set of spiritual and religious beliefs with. I was also feeling swamped with work. It’s hard to suddenly go down to one fulltime person when there are usually two.
My usual way of dealing with these things is to put my head down, grit my teeth and get on with it. This however is not good stewardship of myself, so I asked for help from the hospital management and from the Diocese. I also asked for help from the local clergy. I was very fortunate. The Diocese were able to arrange for a local curate to come to the hospital one afternoon a week. The hospital management said I could get someone each week on a locum bank hours contract and I also built up a list of 15 volunteers from local churches to cover the emergency rota. All this made me realise how much work the two of us full timers do. We work a 37.5 hour week and then do another 45 hours on call. This of course is spread out 24/7. There is a retired cleric who always covers a Friday night, otherwise it’s down to just two full timers. If one of us is off for any length of time it puts a severe burden on the other person.
Saying all this, I love a challenge and I rose to it and really enjoyed trying to co-ordinate and develop so many different aspects of the chaplaincy service.
One night I was called out to the Stroke Ward. When I got there I discovered a delightful man who was preparing himself to die. His speech hadn’t been affected so communication was good. He wanted some reassurance about the dying process and what would happen to him. I thought he was talking about heaven so started talking about going into the arms of a loving God. He said he knew that but what would physically happen to him. This was a new one on me and I wasn’t sure. I encouraged him to speak to the nurses. He said many of them didn’t like to talk about death but he thought I’d be ok with it. I told him I was ok with it and I promised him I would get the answers and get back to him on that one. He then talked to me about how he felt to be leaving his wife after their 60 years together. It was all I could do not to weep with him for the sadness he felt at the pain he would cause his family. I reassured him that love always has pain as the flip side because great love involves great risk and that risk is the pain of parting. When you love someone or have been loved by them it always hurts when they are no longer physically there. But we wouldn’t live our lives with out that love. He understood this and knew he had been fortunate to have 60 years of love. I knew he and his wife needed to experience the pain as the working out of that love until they were to meet again.
I went back the next morning with a leaflet I had found from the Macmillan Team about the physical process of death. The patient was quite frail by then and not able to speak as much. I read the leaflet to him and he nodded at times. I slipped out of the room when his wife and daughter arrived to give them space for those last precious few hours. He died peacefully later that day.
Wow what a privilege. I thank that man for sharing his final journey with me. He was so steady and ready to meet his maker. It’s such a shame that so many people are uncomfortable talking about death. We’re all going to go one day. Death needs to be embraced and not feared. If there is no God then it’s just like falling asleep. We don’t know when the defining moment of sleep comes, we just close our eyes and know we’ve been asleep when we wake up. If there is no God then we won’t wake up. If however, there is a God, as I believe, then we will wake up surrounded by love and light and be invited by a loving God to know whether what we have valued in our lives has eternal value. Again this is nothing to fear. I hope that people don’t see me as the “Grim Reaper” but I do hope they know they can always talk to me about death and dying.
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