Mortality Bites

How can two people who are in the same circumstances in the same hospital be in such very different places? She is sad, anxious, grieving the loss of independence and staring into her own mortality, frightened. He is calm, serene, at peace and says, “You just have got to expect it.” She has outlived two husbands. He has outlived one wife. Both are over eighty. Both are people of faith. So what’s the difference? He has had more time to process things.

His illness has been a gradual decline toward death lasting several years. Her illness has been more sudden. Up to now, she has enjoyed good health. Illness has been his companion for a while. She has a lot of catching up to do to be where he is. He has a head start. I don’t expect her to be at the same place. She’ll get there. I know it. And so does she.

Sometimes being a chaplain just isn’t much fun. It is hard to walk with others who are being pressed in by the narrowing of life, facing their own mortality, without facing my own. Though I am well past the middle point of my life, I still want to believe I’m never going to die. Or at least not think about it today.

Blessings to you all,

Jerald

Sympathy

I really should be more sympathetic. I know, "you're a chaplain, that is your job." Well, yes, but nothing reminds one of how bad feeling sick feels like being sick. I don't get sick often. And I hardly ever get so sick I just want to go to bed. But that is what happened over Christmas vacation. Not the whole vacation, thankfully. But a few days of it I felt miserable.

Compared to the people I see in the course of my job, what I suffered was really minor league stuff. However, I am so used to feeling good that I found it hard to remember what feeling sick felt like. Not now.

I know that not everything that happens to me has some deep, spiritual meaning. But I can certainly reflect on what happens to me and be open to the possibility that God can use it in some way. I know that since my little taste of illness, I am feeling the sicknesses of others a little more personally. So, today I give thanks for whatever viral bug infested my being for the past 2 plus weeks. I don't want to go through it again anytime soon. But I don't want to forget it either.