Ho'omana Health Ministries

 In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

My Dear Companions in The Way,

Last weekend, I was called away suddenly and unexpectedly and was unable to post the Thanksgiving Sabbath message. I received several concerned emails and I want to thank you all for worrying. All is well. Father and Mother simply had different plans for my Sabbath Worship.

I will post the message that I HAD intended for Thanksgiving Sabbath on the next week. In place of the November 27 message, I would like to share with you what happened last week. It all began in the Emergency Department on Friday afternoon (the day after Thanksgiving). An ambulance arrived with an 88 year old frail little lady in severe pain. She was in shock and needed to be flown out immediately for emergency surgery. Later, her 92 year old Hopi husband arrived. He had driven his old pick-up truck. When he was told that his wife was very ill and had been flown out to Flagstaff, he was distraught. He did not normally drive as far as he did that night. A trip to Flagstaff 140 miles away on a major highway was way beyond his ability.

He wanted to be with her but had no way to accomplish the necessary trip. He had out-lived his immediate family. His wife and he had never had children. They were alone in the world and had no one to call on for  help. So on a cold bleak winter night, with a storm coming in, my husband and I set off on an unexpected journey. A 92 year old Hopi gentleman whom we had never met before was our travel companion. We arrived at Flagstaff Medical Center just before the first real winter storm of this season.

My husband set off to find hotel rooms for the night. I accompanied our new Hopi friend. We walked to the information desk. The desk was set up on a pedestal and was almost as tall as this 5 foot Hopi elder. He looked so small and fragile standing there that it hurt my heart. His wife was in the Intensive Care Unit. We followed the directions to the unit. I had to gauge my steps to my Hopi friend's slow aged steps. We finally arrived to the door of the unit.

I picked up the phone outside the unit and announced our arrival. The automatic doors opened. I looked around and took in all the sights and sounds...the monitors, and ventilators and IV pumps....the brisk efficient staff carefully managing and surpressing any potential chaos. I smiled in recognition of it all.  As a former ICU nurse, this was familiar ground to me. The staff...any critical care staff... are my kindred spirits. The surroundings are home. 

Then I remembered my travel companion. I saw the fear in his eyes. His apprehension increased with every step. At that moment, I realized I was not there in that place at that time by happenstance. There was a beautiful Divine logic to this journey. I was there to guide my Hopi friend through the Critical Care world that was so familiar to me but so foreigh and alien to him. The verses from Isaiah that I had quoted during my ordination came back to my mind: 

^"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
       because the LORD has anointed me
       to preach good news to the poor.
       He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
       to proclaim freedom for the captives
       and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor
       and the day of vengeance of our God,
       to comfort all who mourn,

 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
       to bestow on them a crown of beauty
       instead of ashes,
       the oil of gladness
       instead of mourning,
       and a garment of praise
       instead of a spirit of despair. "
      

I went to the nurse's desk and asked for his wife's room. She had just returned from surgery. Her small figure in the hospital bed was dwarfed by all the equipment surrounding her. She had a tube coming out of her mouth to help her breathe and tubes from her nose and stomach draining foul black liquid. The multiple IV lines emerged from her bed like plastic spaghetti.

Her little husband barely recognized her with all the equipment attached. He called her name and then asked me, "Is that her?" When I affirmed that it was her name on the door, he still looked lost. This was not new to me either. I have seen this reaction many times in the past. Family members often find themselves unable to relate to the lifeless, motionless body of their loved one. The body is so unlike it's former self that it almost seems like an imposter. I pulled up a chair and had him sit beside her. Then I pulled back the covers to reveal a small hand. It was a little bloated and puffy from all the fluid that had been poured into her to keep her alive but it was warm and when I placed his hand on top of hers I could feel him soften.

The next few hours he talked to me and to her. He recalled the beautiful life they shared. He was alternately angry, and sad and afraid...of being alone, of losing her, of her suffering. He also spoke tenderly of a life of love shared together....the travels while he was in the military, the hard times when they were first married, the accomplishments of their life. She never woke up but I told him I believe her spirit heard and felt him there. He agreed.  When the time came for her to leave this world, emotion overwhelmed him. He said, " I don't want to see this but I don' t want her to be alone. I told him, "It is OK, I will stay with her" "You go" So he said "Good-bye, Edith" with tears in his eyes. I took her hand from him and he shuffled off as fast as his 92 year old frame could carry him.

Then I looked at Edith and said, "It's OK. You can go now. He is ready" and within 5 minutes her heart stopped. Her husband came back about 10 minutes later. I said, " It's over. She is gone." He asked what time it happened. I told him the time of death.  He said" I knew it. Something told me to look at my watch right at that time"  Then He asked me,"So, you used to do this all the time?" I said, "Yes." He said, "How could you stand it?...all the suffering?" I said," When I share the suffering, I also share the beauty." Tonight I shared the beauty of a 62 year marriage.

He smiled and nodded quietly. "Yes, I see there is good...even in pain"

I called my husband and he picked us up. It was snowing steadily when we left the hospital. The flakes were big and soft  floating down from the sky. The ground was covered with white.  I thought about how good our Mother and Father God are to their children. In every storm in our life, God creates a shelter and shows us the beauty...if we look for it.

'You have been a refuge for the poor,
       a refuge for the needy in his distress,
       a shelter from the storm
       and a shade from the heat. "

Isaiah 25:4