Let me tell you about some very special gifts, though. A while ago I was the on-call chaplain again at Hartford Hospital. Sometimes people ask to see a chaplain for a specific purpose, and this particular evening there was a request from a man in the palliative care unit for communion and a visit.
“Palliative care” is the care patients receive when there’s nothing more that can be done for them, medically. Patients are aware that death is coming perhaps sooner rather than later. Care given at this point is termed “comfort measures only” (CMO). It’s good care, rendered as deftly and compassionately as normal medical care. It’s just that everyone recognizes it’s the end of the line.
I brought communion to the man, and sat quietly nearby as he prayed silently. Then he looked up and began to talk. He had much to say, and we spent almost an hour together. At one point he hesitated for a moment.
“I want to tell you something,” he said, “but I don’t want you to think I’m crazy.”
I told him he could tell me anything and invited him to proceed. “Last night I sat in the lap of Jesus,” he said in even tones, looking at me intently.
I asked him to tell me what that was like for him.
“It was wonderful beyond description,” he said. “I can’t find the words to tell you how wonderful it was. It exceeded every expectation I’d ever had about what meeting Jesus would be like. I didn’t want to come back.”
We sat together quietly for a bit and then he continued. “I don’t know if it was just a trick of my imagination or some chemical thing, but it was good. Do you think I’m crazy?”
I told him that I thought no such thing and asked if I could share a similar story about my mom. He agreed eagerly and I told of sitting alone with her one evening, quietly holding her hand as she neared the end of her life. All of a sudden, she opened her eyes and asked, “Timothy, who are all those people over there and why are they going up the stairs?” I replied that I thought they were all just going home. Her expression seemed to say “Oh, of course.” Satisfied, she closed her eyes again, peacefully.
The patient with whom I was speaking listened with great interest and then said excitedly to me “So you know about the stairs!” I nodded, and he asked, “What do you make of it?”I told him that the experience my mom had was quite common and frankly more the rule than the exception. At the end of life, it seems, we get what we need to be able to move on. It’s one of our lovely God’s most gentle and compassionate gifts to us.
Then I told him that Celtic Christianity speaks of “thin places,” where the space between heaven and earth seems almost to vanish. My mom had been in such a place, and so had he. They’re gifts to us from a loving God, I told him. You can always tell, for you see, God’s gifts are not the kind that are wrapped – they’re the kind that are lived.
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