Our time on the units is done.
Now we have a few days to sit and tell each other about our experiences. I’ve noticed that we’ve all become quite relaxed, and have been laughing a lot.
One of my classmates made a beautiful spelling mistake in his evaluation: instead of writing “follow-up” he wrote “fellow-up.” I thought it was lovely! It’s like keeping in touch with friends, or if you have had an emotional support or spiritual care meeting. I have noticed that a few classmates have had a very easy time saying, “I have done well.” I want to learn more from that way of being, more about self-celebration.
Another classmate was working the unit where “Prayers”, my first ever patient, was transferred. It felt good to hear this patient pop up in that evaluation, and the wonderful care being given. A couple of times I wished I had followed Prayers to this classmate’s unit and felt bad that I didn’t. I no longer felt bad after hearing the evaluation. I had received a touch on the shoulder the last time I had seen Prayers, who came over to do physio regularly and was at that time walking along (!) with a brand new prosthetic leg. Unfortunately, Prayers has since left AMA, so I was never able to say goodbye. I can only hope Prayers is held by God, and eventually comes to place of feeling found. I wish we had had the time to sing “Amazing Grace” together.
At the end of each summary, we all took turns blessing the presenter. I didn’t present my final evaluation today, deciding to save it for tomorrow – our last day of class.
-Clarity
That was my last full week on the unit.
It’s quite surreal to think I will only have two more days of direct care. I feel almost like I’ve been doing this forever.
My lovely patient Voice came back from the ICU and we had a lovely visit. I am amazed at how our relationship has changed. When I first met Voice there was politeness but some suspicion. We have since progressed to Voice saying right out loud how much my company is appreciated, and big smiles.
Another patient who I’ll (a bit irreverently, I realize) call “Gurgles” who was palliative was finally moved to that unit. I was starting to think Gurgles wouldn’t make it to palliative. The first time I saw Gurgles I sang some songs and spoke some simple sentences in the listed mother tongue. I don’t know that it mattered much – Gurgles was already beginning to see and talk to people who weren’t there and generally lay back with eyes closed – but I got a nod as I said goodbye. Today before Gurgles was transferred I just sat with him, speaking only a couple of words every so often. I don’t think they were heard, but I’ve learned it means a lot to just be there, even for the nurse who was “one-on-one” (what they call it when a nurse is at bedside just in case).
A little while ago I had met a patient I’ll call Eyes, who had left but then returned. Eyes had a very strange experience while I was in the room, was convinced it was paranormal in nature, and asked me to explain what I had seen. I had to answer, “I saw that your mood changed very quickly, and you suddenly looked around and seemed afraid.” Based on the chart I was convinced the patient was suffering from hallucinations and paranoia, but I feel I was quite successful in not letting it show.
After I had come down and was just about to leave, I heard my first ever code from my unit – a Code White. Since I’m not expected to answer those if I’m about to leave, I didn’t go up. I feel like I should have, but of course it’s important to go home when you’re ready to do so.
***
I can’t believe how strange time has felt in this work. When I think in terms of weeks, it seems to fly by, and yet it also seems like ages since our midterm evaluations. It also seems like an eternity since May.
It took three hours to finish my final evaluation, which brings up the total amount of work I did on it to about five or six hours! I had thought about going back up to the unit after finishing it, but I ended up being on the unit for my entire required 210 minutes in one stretch, which had never happened before. I had had a referral as soon as I got in so I went up much earlier than usual.
By the end of the day the pastoral care staff seemed quite punchy for some reason. I really don’t know what was going on – everyone was joking around and acting very odd. I kind of loved it.
Something sort of funny happened during that time as well. Quite a few weeks ago my supervisor had walked by me as I sat at a computer and said that the playful part of him wanted to take out the plastic claw holding my hair up, just to see what would happen. I think at the time I told him I wouldn’t mind, particularly because my hair was so thick that nothing would happen and it would just stay the way it was unless I shook it out. I even took it out myself to show him.
Today, he walked by behind me, and without saying anything, reached over, squeezed it to open it, then let go and closed it again. I laughed and just took it out.
I say it’s sort of funny because when I write it I can totally imagine telling particular people I know about it and having them give me a funny look, thinking it was weird for a man in his ’50s to play a schoolboy prank on a woman twenty years his junior. But at the time, there was not only nothing about it that was weird to me, but I actually quite appreciated it. It felt somehow home-y – like I was welcome and loved. It felt like I was part of a team, a family. And there had been other moments that day when other members of the pastoral care team had made me feel that way too. It was a bit unexpected – I had never thought that as a student I’d be given that kind of space. I am really going to miss the staff!
***
When I wrote my final evaluation, I talked about the Sacred Heart. I wonder if some of the exhaustion I’ve been feeling comes from a lack of prayer lately. It’s the first time in years that I’ve only been going to church once a week! Can you believe that? Since 2006 or so I’ve attended at least two Eucharists a week, and some years it was more like four! I never once felt like this was an annoyance or a burden. I really think regular prayer is good for me, so clearly I need to commit to Morning and Evening Prayer. I’m not too worried about it right now, because soon I’ll be going on retreat! My prayers were answered and I’ve gotten my five nights finally booked at the centre I go to. It will be bliss. I have decided the goal of this retreat will be to do some work of integration on what I’ve learned here into my wider faith journey. I have been doing that already, to some extent, but I feel I want to do it more, maybe even as a sort of warm-up for the fall’s big project, the Position Paper.
I can’t believe that the day I went from my confirmation to walk on the beach and give myself to God would culminate in being given a green light to go to Examining Chaplains and continue the work of discernment toward ordained ministry. I can’t believe the summers I’ve had – giving myself to a camp, a man, and a hospital. I am scorched, branded sweetly. I am God’s wee goat, bleating and eating.
I have no idea what the year holds besides more challenges. I do know that after three years there is no possible way I could discount God’s presence. Nothing about this journey has been logical to me. Nothing about it has been anything I could take for granted. I do not care about the circumstances or their “truth.” I care only about how God is speaking to me: through the events of my life.
I have a friend who recently told me the meaning of life: “It’s love, mate.” This is who and what we are. We are put here to love. How could it be anything else? I am not going to strut about telling everyone I’m a genius for having figured this out. I will proclaim it in my own way, the way God has given me.
This year will be about writing. I think for a goal I shall try to get a piece published. If, as my discernment group wrote in my evaluation, I am a “powerful preacher,” then I’ll preach, by God.
-Clarity
It remains amazing to me that in the most unlikely and ordinary, unremarkable places, God can enter in and overwhelm. Sometimes it’s quiet on the mountaintop.
I was watching Florence and the Machine sing this song and then started thinking of all the things in my lifetime that led me up to today: waiting for tomorrow, which up until now is going to be one of the most important days of my life. Tomorrow I will hear the verdict from my discernment group on whether or not I will pass on to Examining Chaplains, the next step in the process toward becoming a priest.
I sat listening to the song and looked up at the icon I wrote of the Mandylion quite a few years ago. As I gazed into it, I felt seen by the quiet white eyes, seen and loved and known. And I could also see the flickering fire for which I have been reaching. I can see who I could be. I can see where I have been forged and scorched and torn and mended and ravished and broken free. I can see what is breaking open and being born in my own heart. I can see a sweet river flowing from a riven side, a sweet river of saints.
And I can see myself diving in.
-Clarity