People die at the hospital. It is not because the staff are negligent. It is simply the reality of bodies that have gone as far as they can bear.
One way that we pay our respects to these people in the chaplaincy program is with ribbons. There are wreaths festooned with rainbows of swishing color, stacked up against the wall. It took me a few weeks to
understand the ceremony.
Each chaplain who has attended a patient close to their death is invited to tie a ribbon, while telling the rest of us about that person's life. It has been my place both to listen and to tell about those sacred interactions.
There was the man who wished it could have been him who died instead of his wife. His love for her was only outpaced by the grief of losing her. I spent a night in a room full of
family facing the death of their matriarch. No one doubted where she was going. The question was how would her husband of fifty years go on without her.
I remember my mother's words when it was my turn to call her with the news of her husband.
"Are you sure?"
As if anyone would be hasty.
There are traditions across the world for saying goodbye. We concoct them to help buffer
the loss. The intern from Tanzania said that those rituals go on for a long time, and no one is too busy to come.
Like many people, I wonder what my own farewell will be like. There are songs I hope will be included, and people I imagine will be there.
The ages of patients are included in their charts, and I notice how many are just a few years older than me. It no longer works to ignore
it.