Thanksgiving
“It hurts when they use those paddles. Feels like you’ve been kicked in the chest. I got kicked three times.”
It was the fourth Thursday of November and Bob was back. We had met a few weeks prior when his name was on the list of official requests for a chaplain visit. What I knew up front was that he was in his early 70s, had a medical history that included hypertension and a heart attack, and he used to be a Baptist preacher.
The last part was the one that intimidated me the most. It was still early in my residency year, and I often questioned if I was a suitable candidate to walk through a door and claim myself a chaplain. Sure, I had experienced a lot of grief. Sure, I had studied theology. But with a background that included some wounding from my own Baptist experience, I was triggered from the moment I saw that piece of information under his name.
Bob couldn’t have been more welcoming. “I love chaplains!” was his first response to my introduction. “Come in. Come in.”
As was customary, there was some superficial conversation to get us started. The room was big. His bed was comfortable. He liked the nurses.
Somewhere along the way, Bob mentioned that he was looking forward to all of the work being done on the townhouse he shared with his wife, Shirley. It had been damaged in the flood of 2010 and a year-and-a-half later, their home was still in a work-in-progress. There’s only so much that can be done at a time when you’re living on a fixed income and your body “ain’t what it used to be.”
He had also survived prostate cancer and was being monitored due to a recent spike in his blood sugar.
Seeing Bob’s name on the patient roster on Thanksgiving Day tugged at my already fragile heart. I was a few days out from a different kind of flood and trying to make some sense of God – and myself. The hallways were much quieter that day with a smaller number of folks on staff and every measure possible taken for patients to spend the holiday at home. If you didn’t have to be there, you wouldn’t be.
Bob had to be there.
When I first passed by his room, I noticed that he was having his holiday meal and opted to let him enjoy it without interruption. About 15 steps down the hall, I realized that having a holiday meal alone, in a hospital and with his medical and emotional history, was not a call to leave him be.
I knocked on the open door. “Hey, Bob. How’s the turkey today?”
“Not worth much, but the stuffing was alright. Come on in.”
We made it through the surface-level stuff within those first few sentences. He remembered our previous visit and I found myself wanting to stay.
“Do you mind if I pull up a chair?” I asked.
“Come right on,” he said. “What did you do to get put here today? They could use the help. That’s for sure.”
“Well, that’s just kinda how it ended up and right now, I’m glad I’m here. How are you?”
Bob was wearing his age more than he had just a few weeks prior. His unshaven beard matched the fatigue listed on his record. That and another round of elevated blood sugar found him in a cramped room, likely the consequence of availability of both space and staff.
“I didn’t want to come in, but Shirley wouldn’t let it go. The night before Thanksgiving and I’m on my way to the hospital. Hardly anybody’s paying attention. Can’t be that different than if I would have waited.”
“And this room is awful.”
He was right. The light was the worst kind of artificial and the walls were a reminder that this was the hospital’s oldest building. Shirley’s cot was to the right of Bob’s bed and took up what little space was left between him and the window. She had stayed overnight and was currently in the cafeteria picking up her own Thanksgiving meal.
“I don’t know how anybody gets better in a room like this,” he said. “Did I tell you I was here for over a month back in September?”
“Yeah, I do remember you saying that.”
“I was supposed to be DNR (Do Not Resuscitate). Thought I had signed the papers. I guess Shirley made ’em do it.”
He paused.
“It hurts when they use those paddles. Feels like you’ve been kicked in the chest. I got kicked three times.”
No one tells you the thing that’s going to save your life is going to hurt so much. I had just spent the past few days knowing it to be true.
“How are you feeling about it now, Bob?”
He got teary. “I’m so angry. Why didn’t they just let me go? I’m ready. I’ve had a good life, been able to do lots of good things. I don’t want to hurt Shirley, but I can’t keep doing this – in and out of the hospital. It’s no life. It’s Thanksgiving Day and I’m here again.”
His honesty was holy.
I struggled between wanting to make it better and wanting to let it be.
Then Shirley walked in the room.
“Did you know they’re giving lunches to the people who are working today? No matter the families that are here – we have to pay. She did give me the water for free.”
The dynamic changed.
“Isn’t this room just awful?” she continued. “I think I’m gonna open the curtain.”
It was one thing she could control.
We talked a bit more about the difference between the room I had first met them in and the room where we were that day. Shirley was obviously frustrated with the whole of the situation, likely a response to her simultaneous desire and inability to make things better. After fussing around her lunch she decided to step out again.
Bob had shared some stories about his own ministry and how he got his call to preach three months after he gave up drinking. He was especially grateful for the time he spent in Kenya. I took the opportunity to move in a bit closer so I could lower my voice, just in case Shirley returned.
“You know what? I think, when you meet God, God is going to say, ‘Well done.’”
“I sure hope so.”
He started to cry again.
“I’ve tried but this last part is the part that’s a little too hard.”
“Do you tell God when you’re having a hard time?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Do you think God understands?”
“Yeah, I think he does.”
“Y’all okay in here?” Shirley asked as she came back in the room. The IV pole started beeping and she was quick to comment.
“Hope we can get somebody in here to fix that.”
Bob assured her that he would call the nurse and asked if I would offer a prayer before I left.
“Of course. Do you have anything special you want to pray for today?”
“I think you probably know.”
I mumbled through some words about Bob’s life and ministry and asked God to draw close in his time of need. It was the only way I could address the depression and subtly recognize that Bob was asking to die while also not wanting to pray for Bob to die.
Eleven years later, I still don’t know if those words were right, wrong, or both. I also don’t know what happened after that visit. I kept an eye out for Bob’s name, but I never saw him again.
That’s one of the harder parts of chaplain work – not knowing. Some patients are long-term and open-book, and others go home before you have a chance to meet. Some, like Bob, show up twice and stay with you, especially on the fourth Thursday of November.
Kitty Eveling 