Pandemic Parables: Frustration

Pandemic Parables: Frustration

For me, Thursday (April 23rd) was a day filled with frustration at the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I’m working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. 

But let me start with comforting news. The number of virus patients remained the same and has not dramatically increased. There have been nineteen deaths (each one a blow.) Thirty one patients either have the virus or are in isolation awaiting results. Unfortunately one of those includes my friend, an amazing Hospice nurse practitioner who has the virus, took a turn for the worse, and came into the hospital in the early hours for additional support. 

I’m praying she will soon be added to the thirty five virus patients who have already heard the “Rocky” theme tune upon being released from the hospital. Lord let it be soon!

Bear with me while I tell you about the frustrations. 

They started early, even before leaving the house. Straight after making my essential morning brew my electric tea kettle broke. 

Thankfully not before. 

It is irredeemably dead - which I thought was pretty rotten of it considering that April 23rd was St. George’s Day - the patron saint of England. No respectable British kitchen would be seen without a mandatory electric kettle. 

It was a very unpatriotic day to die. 

But then nothing is as we think it should be in these odd, strange virus-soaked days. 

On arriving at the hospital I saw that there was an “out of service sign” on both the individual rest rooms near the chaplain’s makeshift office. Peeking inside one open door I realized why. They had both been gutted as part of the large renovation project that has been going on around us. 

A few days before I been concerned about loo (the British term for toilet) rolls. Or the lack thereof. 

Today there are no loos. 

Of course there are facilities.  But the   conveniences aren’t convenient anymore. They are a trudge away. 

The ever-present workmen, pleasant though they are, are pretty noisy chaps. Especially when working with electric drills and emitting a sound that soars over the not-nearly-ceiling-height partition walls that currently encircle our temporary office and rattles the fillings in the teeth of the getting-less-holy-by-the-minute chaplains sequestered there.

Our Clinical Pastoral Education session was also a source of frustration. For two hours every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon the Resident Chaplains and one part time Staff Chaplain meet with the Head of Pastoral Care as part of the program that will give us our professional chaplaincy qualifications. 

There are six of us, born in five different nations, five men and me. Three are Hospice Chaplains and the rest of us work in the hospital. The part time Chaplain covers the weekend nights so we don’t have to. God bless him. 

We used to meet in the head of the department’s cosy office. Now the Hospice Chaplains work from home and our meeting space, the department head’s former office has been swallowed up in the construction. She is working partly at home and partly perched in a vacated office in the hospital that has ceiling high walls. 

She is not happy with the development. 

Our two hour meetings are now via Webex. 

On Thursday the content of the session was deeply moving and emotional. 

Unfortunately, throughout the two hours, my computer and that of my office mate emitted screeching feedback sounds despite the intervention of our in-house computer wizards. 

It sounded like nails down an old fashioned blackboard. 

By the time I started my hospital afternoon visitation rounds I was in great need of grace. 

Great need. 

If that were not enough, there was more. We had new protocols. 

Everyone who is interacting with patients, or interacting with hospital care givers, now has to wear an N95 mask under the compulsory cloth mask at all times. That means that chaplains have to wear the double protection whenever we are on the floors visiting patients, and nursing staff have to wear them throughout their shifts. 

I had to go to Operation Control and be issued an N95, a plastic container that it sits in when not in use, and a large zip lock bag that houses both and must never be sealed so that air can circulate.

“How often can I get a new one?” I said to the nurse administrator who was struggling to teach me how to wear this contraption.  

“When this one starts to fall apart then come back to us” she said adjusting the mask so it no longer covered my eyes. 

“That should be about ten days or more.”

I was not happy about wearing this mask, the N95. Only a few weeks before I had been fitted for one and failed the fitting. That was the second time that had happened to me. Apparently those with fuller faces or with facial hair - beards for example - can’t effectively wear this style of mask. 

Well I’ve lost weight and I wax and I’m still not a proper candidate. 

But I’ll be wearing it anyway. 

I discovered that N95s are very uncomfortable if you have them on for an extended period of time. 

The nurses I met were not happy about this new development. 

Nor was this chaplain. 

We bonded over our displeasure. 

As I walked along the corridors towards my first patient’s room I anticipated the difficulties.  It was hard enough connecting with a patient and drawing out feelings and emotions whilst wearing a cloth mask. How much more difficult and muffled it would be with two. Especially if the patient is hard of hearing. 

The only patients I am allowed to visit  at the moment are virus-free and not in isolation of any kind. 

My first patient, while wearing this new double protection, a lovely older gentleman, was no exception. 

I felt he looked a little bewildered at the sight of my masked face as though he was being visited by an alien. 

He couldn’t hear. 

I was apologetic and felt stifled. 

I shouted. 

But gradually we both relaxed and communication and grace happened. 

When the Lord wants to move, and, touch, and comfort, He will. 

Despite a bad attitude and a double masked mouth. 

At the end of this visit, after we had prayed together, this gentleman said to me rather shyly. 

“May I ask you a favor. It wouldn’t take you long.”

“Certainly,” I said. “What is it?”

“Will you raise your mask just for a moment so I can see who I’ve been speaking to?”

I felt like a Victorian maiden who had just been propositioned to show her ankle. 

I plead the fifth on what happened next. 

However when I left the patient had a smile on his face. 

At the end of my shift it was pouring with rain. I needed groceries. 

It took thirty five minutes to line up and start shopping at Costco. 

Life seem very difficult. 

I was so grateful to get home. 

Then things started to change. 

As I pulled into my driveway I remembered with relief that I had a travel kettle in the trunk of my car. Hallelluia!

Outside my front door was a sodden looking parcel. The writing on the front had almost washed away. But I could just make out it was from a wonderful friend in West Virginia, who is integral part of the Storytelling Community. 

Inside, I removed the dripping paper. The solid cardboard box had held up and the contents were completely dry. 

There were - glory be - four hard to come by toilet rolls. A bag of home made fortune cookies. 

And a pile of three perfectly beautiful small rocks. 

Such incredible kindness!

Love and generosity pored from that box. 

I was so grateful. 

There was also a wonderfully encouraging note. Part of it said:”I have ...included a cairn for you. As you no doubt know, cairns are used as trail markers when hiking so one doesn’t lose their way.” They are “often put there by other hikers to mark which way to go on a tricky part of the trip. Seems like this one belongs to you. ... Hope you know how loved you are.”

I melted. 

I stared at that cairn. Through it the Lord seemed seemed to be saying to me: “You are on a difficult part of the path. It feels rocky and insurmountable. You are weary. But you are going in the right direction. You are exactly where you are meant to be. Keep going forward. It will all be worth it in the end. Stay the course, my brave, beloved one. Stay the course!”

And then I remembered that it was St. George’s Day. 

Legend tells us St. George, who is also celebrated in other parts of the world, took on injustice, and that to right wrongs he fought a dragon that others had feared to face. When he finally defeated the dragon a red rose sprang up where his blood had soaked into the land. That rose - the symbol of love - is now the emblem of England.  

In these Coronavirus days, whether we are working in a hospital, or sheltering at home, we are facing a fearful enemy. Together, my brave and beautiful ones, we will defeat this dragon.  And one of the legacies will be the love and generosity that has been poured out by friends and strangers in so many settings which will ultimately change this generation at a deep level and make the world a better, kinder place. 

Let it be so. 

Amen!

Pandemic Parables: Relief

I am relieved about several things today in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. 

For one thing, although the number of virus patients are going up, it is not a dramatic rise. As of this afternoon (Tuesday April 21st) we have twenty eight confirmed patients in isolation, with an additional two closeted awaiting results. And although we grieve the seventeen patients who have died, we rejoice for the twenty who have recovered from the virus, many who have already been released from the hospital. 

I am also relieved that the hospital is saying that the COVID surge is now expected to peak a few weeks earlier than projected. 

Apparently we could see that happening any time between now and the beginning of May. 

Such good news!

On a far lighter note. 

Far, far lighter...

I am relieved I haven’t been to Las Vegas recently or indeed ever. 

Relieved that I haven’t forgotten about indiscretions that never happened on a trip that didn’t occur. 

Let me explain. 

One of the operators at the hospital called me this morning and said, a little hesitantly: “Chaplain Geraldine, your husband is on the phone.”

“I beg your pardon” I said, thinking I’d misheard. 

“Your husband is on the phone” 

But I don’t have a husband!” said I. 

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “But there is a man who says he is your husband and wants to talk to you. I asked him if he meant the head of your department, Kay Myers. I know her given name, that she never uses, is Geraldine. But she always goes by Chaplain Myers, or Dr. Kay. I asked if that’s who he meant. But no. He says he wants to speak to you, Chaplain Geraldine, and that he is your husband. 

I’m was a little confused by this point. 

“I’ve never been married.”  I said. 

Then - hoping she would realize I was joking. 

“Does he sound nice? Is he a good Christian man who is kind, intelligent, and has a great sense of 

humor?”

“I’ll ask him” she said. 

We both giggled like schoolgirls. 

She never got to find out who he was or who he really wanted to speak to. When she reconnected to his line he had gone. 

And although I racked my brain, and thought through all the drama of my misspent youth I am still completely certain that I’ve never been to Vegas...

This season is full of trauma and mystery, both. 

There is another reason I’m relieved I’m working at the hospital during the Pandemic. 

Toilet paper.

Seriously!

There is no shortage of that essential commodity within those healing walls. But the supply in my home was getting uncomfortably low. 

I had begun to seriously ration my usage. 

And by the time I got to the store in the evening after work the shelves glistened in their pristine emptiness. 

What was a girl going to do?

I mentioned my predicament in a comment on a friend’s FB picture when I saw that they were nonchalantly propping up their computer against a twelve pack of plump rolls. 

I committed the sin of envy. 

Big time. 

A friend in Tennessee offered to share her well-stocked supply. At first I was delighted until I realized what that would entail. 

My friend would have to get out of her recently vacated sick bed, wade through her flooded back yard suited up with mask and gloves; and hover outside her local post office waiting until she would be the only one in there. Only then would she be able to send off the parcel she had laboriously packaged. 

I would never let that happen!  

I love her immensely for the offer. But no!

Still I had got to the point yesterday where I was in a staff rest room on the third floor, my assigned floor, and there, propped up against a water pipe, was a spare toilet roll. 

I lusted. 

Then I went into the isolation wing for my daily visit with the nurses. I bumped into the tall Jamaican cleaner who works there, the one with wonderfully kind eyes. He was exiting a supply cupboard. Curious, I peered into its depths. 

It was a Corona virus Aladdin’s cave! 

Next to gallons of disinfectant and sterile wipes were roll upon roll upon roll of domestically sized, individually packaged toilet paper. 

I drooled. 

I began to understand how the generation who came out of the Great Depression hoarded food, paper bags, jam jars. 

The trauma of sustained lack had forever changed their habits. 

I felt close to them. 

Would I ever be able to think about toilet paper - loo roll as we say in England - in the same way?

Walking back to the Chaplains’ office I muttered a quick prayer.

“Lord, I really would like some rolls of toilet paper. And I’m too tired to go into more than one or two shops to find it, especially if I discover it was sold out hours ago. Lord. Help!”

Later that afternoon in our office one of the other Chaplain’s said:

“I went downstairs to the staff cafeteria and guess what they have started doing? They are helping out the staff who are having problems finding basics. They say they’ll have a range of things over the next few days. But for the moment they selling paper towels, bread, and toilet paper.”

Toilet paper!

I was down the stairs and along the endless corridor to the cafeteria almost before she had finished speaking. 

There, indeed, in the entrance, on a newly erected shelf, nestled next to other goodies were loo rolls!

Glory!

Handing over 59 cents for each plump package was a joy, and a relief. 

The Lord had heard my prayer. 

And quickly. 

Once again I knew, that in this season of trauma, mystery, and unanswered questions, God is faithful. Both in the small things as well as the large. As the scripture says, He will make a way where there seems to be no way. 

He will provide. 

There will be enough. 

And when it comes to the uncertain future, that we all face, I hold onto with an iron grip, and speak out determinedly the promise in Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you” declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. “

And then I remember once again that one of the names of God is “El Shaddai,” which means the Great Breasted One, or The Comforter. God is Mother as well as Father. 

Mothers care, protect, nurture, provide, and love fiercely. 

And I had been mothered. Beautifully. 

And I had the toilet rolls to prove it. 

Pandemic Parables: Camaraderie

Pandemic Parables: Camaraderie

There has been an increase in camaraderie in the already friendly, hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I work as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August.

This is no real surprise as the hospital has far fewer people walking its halls. There are virtually no visitors, and staff have been cut back to a minimum. 

Those who can are working from home. Others, such as medical staff who are not needed on the Covid-19 areas, or in their sparsely-patient-filled regular sections, have been furloughed or reassigned. The hospital has created a generous virus-related policy enabling non-essential-at-the-moment employees to select very fair alternative ways to work and be paid. 

This is a hospital that truly values its staff. 

If you see an unfamiliar face hurrying through the halls with a visitor badge and a strained, glazed expression it is someone on their way to seeing a dying patient. Alternatively it might a proud, focused, car-seat carrying new father headed for the birthing center hastening to get his partner and freshly-emerged progeny far away from the hospital and its carefully cloistered Covid patients. 

Because there are so few full time staff members left, strong bonds forged by kindness and understanding are being formed between those that are still here as we face this crisis and share together the tension and stress that permeate the hospital’s atmosphere.  

Sometimes I feel like walking through the hallways quoting the long-ago memorized St. Crispin’s Day speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...”

As I visit my assigned areas I see signs of this camaraderie and kindness everywhere. I went into the isolation wing on my floor, the third floor, as I do daily to check on the staff. I wanted to see if they were ready for more pumpkin bread. 

They weren’t. 

When I entered their break room I saw why.  There was a huge basket overflowing with fruit, cookies, cakes, chips; an enormous box of donuts; a myriad of other good things. 

This glorious largesse had been put together by the nursing staff of another area of the floor wanting to thank their fellow staff on this isolation wing, and the one on the floor above, for their dedication and bravery in being sequestered with the virus-sick. 

Such generosity and kindness!

As I walked towards a group of nursing staff to see if they would like prayer, I saw a tall man with a Jamaican accent who had just come out from cleaning one of the Corona virus patient’s rooms. 

“How are you?” I said. “Are you doing alright? How are you feeling” 

His eyes crinkled at the corners as though he was smiling widely under his cloth mask. 

“How are you?” He said looking down at me from his great height. His eyes were kind. 

“You get to look out for and pray for everyone else.  So I want to know. How are you?”

Moved by his genuine concern I melted into a puddle all over his recently shined floor. 

The staff on my isolation wing are grateful that there has been a recent decline in the number of patients they are looking after. They see it as a welcome pause before the next wave - a time to catch their breaths. 

“The prayer is working!” Said one. “Amen!” another agreed. 

I told them about St. John the Evangelist church, five minutes from the hospital in the historic part of Frederick, (known as the City of Clustered Spires because of the close proximity of its beautiful old churches.) 

St. John’s has the tallest bell tower, which has just been lovingly restored. It is the one you first see when you drive into town. Every night until the end of the pandemic St. John’s have committed to flooding their tower with blue light to remind everyone who sees it to pray for those who are on the front lines of the Covid-19 war. 

“So you are being prayed for by many people” I said. 

Their smiles of gratitude tinged with relief are engraved on my heart. 

The stress really is palpable in every area of the hospital and felt by everyone, not just those working in the ICUs and isolation wings. 

A security guard told me in passing he had to exercise discipline to take only one blood pressure pill a day. Several who heard him sympathized, nodding knowingly.  

Alongside the stress is a guarded relief that the feared surge has not yet come. As of Thursday night we had twenty four confirmed virus patients, thirteen of whom were in the ICU on ventilators, and three who were sealed off under investigation. 

The hospital has now sourced chemicals enabling them to process virus tests that come both from their drive-by sites and from within their walls. 

That means that instead of waiting for up to ten days to get results from seriously log-jammed outside laboratories the  results can be had within 24 hours - sometimes quicker. This prevents unnecessary use of PPE - and gives the patient and their families great relief. 

There is a new ritual for when a patient is declared Covid-19 free and sprung from the isolation wings. Music is played on the overhead speakers. The opening notes of a lullaby are always heard when a baby is born. Now, in addition, we are getting bursts of the theme tune from “Rocky” or “Here Comes The Sun” and we rejoice that another patient is on the far side of their virus nightmare.

There is one patient, dear to many of our hearts, that we are longing to hear has kicked Coronavirus to the curb. A truly wonderful nurse practitioner in the Hospice program, whom I adore, has tested positive and is recovering at home where she lives alone. This former army nurse is one of the most vibrant, loving genuine people I know. She lives nearby. So of course I dropped off a still warm, prayed-over loaf of pumpkin bread, and hearty chicken soup outside her closed front door.

This Nurse Practitioner wants to heal quickly, and build immunity, so she can return and continue caring for dying Covid-19 patients. 

She and her fellow Hospice nurses are the most incredible human beings. 

They are frightened  - or at least wary - of the virus, but they gown up (grateful that the dwindling supply hasn’t completely petered out) and go and minister love and compassion regardless. 

One of their patients loved Elvis. She wanted to hear his music one last time. So the hospice nurse held her hand and sang his songs as the patient transitioned into death. 

That is love in action!

Needless to say the second loaf of pumpkin bread went to the hospice nurses this week. Such a tiny tribute for a group who give so much. 

There is a Service Excellence Team at the hospital who are doing their best to make all the staff feel valued and loved. We have no physiotherapy patients at the moment so they have emptied out the equipment that is normally in their gym and have turned it into a “Zen Den.” The lights are low, soft relaxing music plays, reclining massage chairs, rocking chairs and foot massagers are all ready to be wiped down with disinfectant before use and enjoyed. They have placed writing and meditation prompts in there as well as refreshments and aromatherapy sprays. It is there for any member of staff who needs a Time Out from anxiety. 

This team have also placed placards by the time clocks. One says: “This Is Where Heroes Clock In” Another - “You Make The World A Better Place”. 

It is all kindness and comradeship in action. 

The other day I had seen two dying patients in a row. They were non-virus patients who were well below their biblical allotted span. They were long, emotional, meaningful visits. One was grieving because it was the first time she had ever been away from her home-schooled children, realizing that her absence would soon be permanent. 

The other was hoping to return home to die. 

He was scheduling his friends to come and see him for short visits so he could say goodbye. He was going to insist that each of them take a book from his carefully collected library of technical literature when they left. 

“Why not?” He said. I won’t be needing them now.”

After those visits I went for a ten minute break in the Zen Den. I was stretched out in a recliner when an interpreter that I didn’t know came in and smiled at me. She picked up an aromatherapy bottle and said “would you like me to spray you with lavender?

I would. 

She did. 

And then she left. 

Again - kindness. 

Lavender reminds me of my maternal grandmother. I felt safe and cocooned in those memories 

So for those few minutes I lay back and let some of the tension from the hospital that seemed to have gone in my bones flow out of me. 

As I did I realized that this virus season is showing people for who they really are deep down. Surface distractions are gone. At times like these you see people’s essence. 

I am spending my days with a dedicated, skillful team of people who care. Really care. We are being bonded together by a common, invisible enemy. 

We are being supported by an army of people who pray, encourage, love. 

And that is good. Very good. 

It makes me rethink my future. What I want. 

What I will no longer tolerate. 

It also makes me think about a bible story that starts in 1 Samuel 22. 

David, the shepherd boy, psalmist, and future king, was fleeing from King Saul and had to pretend to be a madman to get out of the clutches of one of Saul’s allies, Achish who was King of Gath. In despair David holed up in a stronghold called The Cave of Adullam. Four hundred men “who were in distress, or in debt, or discontented” made their way to him. Together they spent time in isolation, in effectual quarantine from an enemy that seemed too big for them.  But when they emerged this misfit rabble had been transformed. They are referred to later as “David’s Mighty Men” and were known for their bravery and exploits. 

So with us. 

I believe that this quarantine time is honing and testing us. It is a necessary boot camp for what lies ahead. Lessons are being taught that we will need - and could learn no other way. We are being transformed. And although it is hard to endure. It is worth the pain and frustration. 

Or will be. 

And I believe that there will be a real camaraderie between all in this generation who have feared, faced off against, and overcome this virus. At some deep level we will be permanently bonded. 

Shakespeare says it best although he was talking about the Battle of Agincourt, and not an unseen enemy. It is the rest of the quote that I found myself muttering in the hospital’s halls. 

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”

God be with all of you. We shall fight. We shall endure. We shall overcome. And the new reality will be different but real. Worthwhile. 

May it be filled with peace, grace, and fulfilled dreams. 

For all of us. 

Amen!

Pandemic Parables: Moving

Pandemic Parables: Moving

We are indeed on the move at the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I’m working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. In the middle of a pandemic a large building project is taking place in the area where the chaplains' offices are situated. 

Were situated. 

With only hours of notice our office had to be vacated. We needed to move into a temporary space, effectively a corridor surrounded by tall - but not nearly ceiling high - office dividers. 

There were ever-changing messages about this transition; what would come with us; what would be put in storage; where was our final destination; and when that would be. Many things are still uncertain. At least they are to me and my fellow chaplains. 

This past week has felt as though we are in a carnival sideshow precariously shuffling across a series of interlocking circles that are constantly shifting. All the while we are holding high trays piled with serious chaplaincy and visitation duties, like stoic religious waiters. 

Needless to say we have been doing a lot of extra praying for peace, grace, and the ability to hold it all together with equanimity. 

The other day, needing to shed stress, I couldn’t wait for my lunchtime walk around the beautiful, eerily empty grounds of Hood College, which is right behind the hospital. It was seventy five degrees, one of our first warm days. There was a tornado advisory - but that wasn’t due to start for over an hour. 

I headed out the door. 

The sky began to darken. I walked faster. The clouds became ominous. I increased my pace and my prayers. Fifteen minutes into a thirty minute walk the heavens opened and let loose a deluge that was biblical in intensity. I arrived back at the hospital front entrance dripping like a just bathed labradoodle, much to the hilarity of the security officers. 

I squished through the hallways towards our new office space to get my car keys, leaving a slug-like shiny wet trail behind me, all the while apologizing profusely to every cleaner I passed. 

I live close to the hospital. Every article I wore was soaked. There was no alternative but to change. As I drove home the skies cleared. The sun came out. Had there really been been a tremendous downpour minutes before?

There was a parcel outside my door. I buy many of my clothes second hand on eBay. A new to me maxi skirt had arrived that matched the jewelry I was already wearing. Here was my sartorial solution!  Within minutes I was dressed in fresh clothes from the skin up, had dried my hair, and was on my way back to work, hardly over my allotted lunch time. The sun was still shining and did so for the rest of the day. 

And I got several compliments on my new skirt. 

The whole incident had me thinking ahead to when the intensity of the pandemic has passed. Even beyond then, when this unsettling season has slipped into distant memory. 

Will it seem like a dream? 

As though it never really happened? 

But like me, glancing down at my new skirt and being reminded of the downpour, we will have changed. 

No one will come through this mass trauma the same. 

But I am believing that, like the parcel waiting for me outside the door containing exactly what I needed, that the Almighty will continue to provide and protect.

And because of that, although the future will look different, it will be good. 

Pandemic Parables: Gifts

Pandemic Parables: Gifts

This has been a week of gifts small and large in the Frederick, Maryland hospital where I am a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. One of those gifts is that the number of virus patients in the hospital has risen gently, not in a tidal wave.
Yet.  

Based on national models, the hospital CEO is projecting that the surge will peak at the end of May. It is a wonderful hospital and the leadership has made a myriad changes to the overall running of the place so that they are as prepared as they can be when the flow of virus patients increases. Sections of the hospital, including what was the business center across the street, and a large prefab building given by the State and quickly erected in the parking lot, await a flood of patients that we continue to pray never arrive. 

So far, by Thursday evening, seven Covid-19 patients had died at the hospital since the pandemic began, (and we grieve every one of them). There were eighteen confirmed cases and twenty in isolation awaiting results. But - wonderful news - twenty three patients have recovered- mainly due to the tireless dedication of the nurses who look after them with such love, skill, and grace. 

Another gift is the changing of the visitation policy. It used to be that a virus patient could have no visitors. Now if a  patient is actively dying two visitors over the age of eighteen are allowed to be with them. They are given gowns, gloves, masks - the same protective equipment as the nurses. It must be the same two visitors and they have to agree to isolate themselves for fourteen days after leaving the hospital following the death. 

This is a wonderful relief for many relatives, and for the nurses who truly care for their patients. However not everyone can take advantage of the new visitation opportunity. One family had just had a baby and didn’t want to risk coming in to the hospital, another patient’s husband was too frail, another already had a compromised immune system. All good reasons to stay away. 

There is a small dedicated team of Hospice nurses who work solely with the dying and their families. These women have become my friends. They are among the loveliest, most compassionate people I have ever met, with the most vibrant senses of humor. 

It hurts these hospice nurses’ hearts to see a patient die alone. So they are organizing for a dedicated iPad, for their use only so it will always be available, to connect the patient with their family via technology through their last hours of life. 

Although I am not allowed to go into virus patient’s rooms I consider it a gift that I am now able to enter the isolation wing on the third floor, one of my assigned areas. Before I had to hand the prayed-over pumpkin bread, that I am making weekly for staff that I could no longer see, to the unit secretary. She would emerge from the inner sanctum looking tense and strained. “It’s hard to be in there some days.” She’d say. “It is difficult to be cut off from everyone. And there is always a fear that you might carry something back home with you. Some of the younger nurses feel it particularly. They have small children.”

So I was really pleased that this week I could carry the pumpkin bread in myself. 

There have been several deaths on this wing, far more than they usually have. The Nurse Manager, who has goodness, grace, and compassion coming from her pores, was concerned about the effect that multiple deaths were having on her staff, already tense from working in a virus hot spot. So finally I was allowed in. 

The Nurse Manager led me through the door with its “Do not Enter! Isolation!” sign, to a second barrier. Stretched across the hallway floor to ceiling was a thick transparent sheet that was embedded with two long zips. Opening one,she let me through and quickly fastened it behind us. 

Beyond that plastic wall is a different world. The strain and tension in the air was palpable. I could see  it in the faces and the body language of the staff. Almost before I’d managed to hand over that much appreciated sweet treat the most incredible thing happened. Nurses, and assistants, got up from their stations, formed an oddly shaped circle saying to their co-workers “The chaplain’s here. We are going to pray. Do you want to join us?”

And we did! That prayer was one of the most heartfelt I have ever uttered. And I believe the Almighty will indeed pour His love, grace, and strength into and through these incredible carers, and protect them and those they love. 

The next day when I returned to the unit I discovered what the second zip in the plastic barrier was for. It created a larger portal. Another patient had died not long before and I entered at the same time as a porter pushing a gurney covered by a sheet - transportation for the morgue. 

“The nurses aren’t used to so many deaths on the unit.” Said the secretary, reiterating the Nurse Manager’s concerns. “None of us are. They are all doing so well at the moment. They are holding their emotions inside them and doing their jobs beautifully. But the strain will come out afterwards. That’s when they’ll need help. When we’ll all need help.” I nodded in agreement. And then we gathered, a smaller group this time, and once again, we prayed. 

There have been other gifts. One of the hospice nurses, whom I adore, gave me a colorful hair band with two large, bright buttons sewn on each side so that face masks could attach and save your ears from strain. She had an abundant handful she’d commissioned a friend to make so that she could gift them to her fellow workers. My ears and my heart are grateful. 

One gift was unexpected and touched me deeply. A cleaner on the non-isolation part of my floor, a kind and caring woman, has an angel ministry. She prays and asks the Lord which patients would be blessed by a small angel statue. 

I went into one patient’s room, before this pandemic. He was overjoyed, his face beaming. “I’d been praying and asking for the Lord to show me that he loved me” he said. “I wanted a touch from an angel. And then a cleaner I’d never seen before came into the room and gave me this.“ 

With tears in his eyes he pointed to a small plastic angel. “Now I know God truly loves me!”  

I moved aside all my preexisting theology about angels and knew with certainty that the Almighty was walking these corridors and using an abundance of ways and willing hearts to touch His people. 

The other day I was a recipient of this Angel ministry. “Here” said the cleaner. “This is for you.”  And she handed me a small white porcelain angel holding a full-flowering rose. 

I was deeply moved. 

Years ago, with the help of many volunteers,  I launched a theatre in the church in England where I worked. It was called “The Rose” - short for Rose of Sharon - one of the names of Jesus. 

Later, in America, I had  a ministry also called “The Rose,” which nurtured and grew prophetic creativity. Creativity that speaks to the heart. 

If I could have hugged that wonderful cleaner I would have - tightly. It was only social distancing that kept me apart. 

That angel is now on my desk. Every time I see it I feel the Lord saying” Hopes and dreams I’ve given you will be fulfilled. In my way. In my time. Hang on in there darling!”

There were a couple of other unexpected gifts this week. The first was a silent belly laugh. 

As part of my Chaplain Residency program I meet for two hours a week Tuesday through Thursday with my supervisor and five fellow male chaplains. For the last few weeks it has been via the internet. 

Last week I realized, yet again, that despite having worked in the hospital since last May this Storyteller is still incredibly unmedical. My supervisor was talking about a heroine. For the longest time I thought she was referring to Rapunzel when in reality she was talking about the drug... 

I guffawed internally long and loud at my idiocy all the while keeping a straight face for the camera. 

The levity was needed. It was a deep serious session. One chaplain’s home town is Albany, Georgia. At the beginning of Covid-19, on the cusp of social distancing, when understanding was scant, two churches got together for a funeral for a beloved elder. They deliberately hugged and embraced to show that they were not afraid of the virus. 

Albany, Georgia is now a main center of the pandemic in the South. 

My fellow chaplain told me that every day he hears of friends and family dying. 

In addition another chaplain in our group had recently lost his mother. 

In the ten minute break in the middle of the web session I badly needed to stretch my legs. I walked down the long corridors passed the gift shop, closed for the duration, with its forlorn stuffed bunnies drooping under the sorrow of not being adopted. I continued on to the main hospital foyer grateful for the exercise. 

I heard music. 

It was coming from the almost always silent grand piano that graces that main entrance. There was a man in sweats and a golf shirt playing beautifully and with enthusiasm. It was one of the doctors freshly changed from his scrubs tinkling those ivories with abandon, playing for sheer joy as well as for the handful of people who were listening with surprise and gratitude. 

I sat down eight feet from him and, through my mask, cheered him on. He played Elton John’s “Your Song” with its opening line “It's a little bit funny this feeling inside...” He ad libbed as he went along with the words  “I’d build a big house where Covid could not live”. And ended with a flourish on “How  Wonderful Life is When You’re In the World” before wiping down the keys, giving us all an air hug, and leaving. 

I raced back to my web meeting thinking about all the people who work in this hospital and how, for this season, this Storyteller unlikely or not - is so grateful to be in their dedicated midst. 

I also thought that in this time of darkness the glimmers of goodness, the unexpected kindnesses, the bubbling laughter are indeed a great divine gift. They show that He who has His eye upon the sparrow cares deeply and is watching over us all with great love and compassion. 

I am writing this post on Easter Saturday. That divine pause between Good Friday’s sorrow, and Easter Sunday’s joy. Like us with the fear and uncertainty of the Coronavirus, on that long ago Saturday the apostles were hiding away in terror of the Roman wrath that lurked outside their door. 

And then the Resurrection happened and everything changed. 

In this season of miracles may Resurrection light and life flood all of our lives bringing deep inner peace and the certain knowledge that we are loved. Deeply loved. Loved beyond our understanding or comprehension. 

And may we also know with unwavering conviction that somehow, some way, in God’s perfect time, everything is going to be all right. 

Amen.