One of the presentations in the chaplaincy training was about addiction. The crisis is dire. They have a tidied up name for it, to skim off the stigma. In fact it works so well that the resident chaplain who briefed me before my overnight shift did not know what it meant on a referral. The patient it described
was one I needed to visit.
When I heard the presentation the day before, my mental response was adamant.
"That is not where I will serve. I have no experience with recovery. I will stick with hospice and the sick."
God replied with, "Oh, really?"
When I arrived at the woman's bedside, she took up a small portion of her bed. Even her gown seemed like overkill for her frail frame. Most of the blackened parts of her limbs were covered by the sheet, but I noticed them. Yet I felt not the
merest revulsion. I knew that she did not have long to suffer.
"What are you holding?" she asked.
"It is a little book with names and room numbers. Your name is in it."
I did not mention that is said she was on comfort care.
"What would you like me to know about you?"
She was oh, so tired, but she responded with some conviction.
"I am a good person. Very good."
"I believe you," which I could say without reservation. Here was a mother of young children, who had herself been traumatized by her mother. When she described that woman, with adjectives I will not repeat, she almost spit.
"May I have some ice chips?" I hurried to get some. As I scooped them into her mouth, which was missing teeth, I felt only compassion. Was this her last meal?
"Did you use?" she asked, meaning heroin.
"No, I never did." I felt no pride in this fact, the one that divided my world from hers like the Grand Canyon. I spared her details, like that I have never been drunk, much less tried drugs. It is not because I am good and she is bad. That much I knew.
"Why not?" this seemed incredulous to her.
Perhaps there was no one in her life that didn't.
"I guess it wasn't part of what I wanted." She puzzled over this, with the scant energy she had left.
Did she have choices? Had anyone ever allowed her to want anything?
"I didn't want to hurt my children," she said quietly. I prayed that there were people who had scooped up those sons and daughters, but it was not mine to know.
"I need to go now."
She looked up, which was an effort. With nowhere to go, and no one to come, this confused her.
"I am sorry. I have other patients to see."
Probably there was no shred of entitlement in her, no sense of
deserving left to be extinguished. How many others had walked away without looking back?
We did not speak of heaven, but I believe that there will be a welcome for her. Maybe today. Angels who have a depth of mercy that leaves mine in the dust, wiping away her pain.
"And God will
wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21