No One Knows but God

During the summer of 1992, as well as the next, I served as a fill-in Hospice Chaplain. I was helping out a friend who was the actual chaplain. Our area of service consisted of four Kentucky Counties all boarding the Tennessee State line. The most eastern of these county’s was nestled in the foothills of Appalachia. Those two summers were good for me as I was struggling to recover from what had been the most difficult time of my life both physically and  spiritually. I had taught middle school during the school year for the past three years. Preaching and pastoring had been put on hold, but I was doing a lot of soul searching as to whether I would ever minister in those ways again. Prior to July of 1990 I had served 16 years as a pastor. I wasn’t sure I could ever do that again.

God blessed me both summers that I served as Hospice chaplain, especially the first one. I was doing what I had loved most in the pastorate, ministering to people who were hurting. Each hospice patient I visited was going to die within a few months, maybe weeks. Some of them were elderly, some middle age, and a few were young adults, younger than me. Most of them were frightened, and all of them had family who were hurting, sad and unsure how to handle what was about to happen. I tried to visit each person every week to ten days. Those who seemed to be nearest death I would get more frequent visits. I went to nursing homes, and hospitals, but most of my visits were in homes. In those few short weeks of that summer I got to be close to several of the patients and their families. We didn’t discuss their illness all that much. We talked about everyday things, about their lives, their work, their friends and family, funny experiences, pets, anything to help them focus on more pleasant events than death.

Yet, that subject would arise each time before I left. They were eager to talk about their end. We talked about Jesus, about heaven, and I would try to answer their questions the best I could. One sweet wife whose husband was very near the end said she wished she could lie in bed with him just one more time. He was in a hospital bed that hospice provided. I said, “You just hop up there and snuggle with (I said her husband’s name) any time you want to.” That brought a big smile to both their faces. I prayed with them and I left that day feeling really good about my visit.

Sometimes, especially one time in particular, I did not feel good about my spiritual care for one of my hospice patients. On some occasions we feel like we have done all we can do, and wonder what more could we have done. We try to convince ourselves that we accomplished all we could accomplish, but we are haunted for years about the situation, never really reaching a point where we are satisfied.  There was a lady just a few years older than me who was dying from breast cancer. It is my memory of her that still causes  me to shudder.

This lady, Mary, and her husband lived in the Appalachian foothills. She had been admitted to hospice only a few days before my first visit. I made the long drive out to the middle of nowhere. Each country road became narrower and rougher the closer I got. The last turn put me on a long rut filled dirt road which led me to an old mobile home. That was where Mary lived. That July afternoon was humid and extremely uncomfortable. Before I reached the front door to the trailer sweat was pouring down my back. Mary’s youngest daughter cautiously opened the door although she had been told I was coming. She invited me in, and just as I stepped inside a large man walked out the back door. Before I could ask, the daughter said, “That’s my pop. He don’t like no preachers,”

Mary was lying in the hospital bed which had been set up in the living room. The temperature in the trailer must have been in the eighties. An old rusty box fan was blowing on Mary making a futile attempt to bring her any relief. I spoke to Mary, introducing myself as the hospice chaplain. She never opened her eyes, but did raise her hand as though to offer it to me. I took her hand, and asked her a couple of questions, but she did not reply. I told her I wanted to pray for her. At that she weakly squeezed my hand. I told her that Jesus loved her, and that he wanted to take her to heaven. I explained how she could be sure that she could have eternal life, and then I prayed.

Before I left I talked to the daughter. She told me there were three more adult children. None of them would come to see their mother after they learned about her cancer. They were afraid she would give it to them. Mary had been sick for several weeks before she went to see a doctor. By then it was too late. We later found out that the husband didn’t want her to go to a doctor, and that Mary was afraid of doctors anyway.

In a few days I visited Mary one more time. On that visit she was not able to understand that I was there. The husband left as soon as I walked in the room. I never met him, not did I meet the other children. The next morning when I got to the office I was told that Mary had passed. Her daughter had left a message saying simply, “Mom croaked.” There was no funeral, no visitation, just a burial somewhere in those lonely forsaken hills. I made one more visit hoping to see the husband, and certainly the one daughter who had stood by her mother even though she didn't have the skills nor the maturity to do much. I knocked on that old door one more time, but no one answered, the husband may have been home, but then, “He don’t like no preachers.”

Mary was one of twelve of my hospice patients who died that summer. I can’t remember very much about the rest of them, but I will never forget Mary. I wish I knew what happened with her spiritually. Only God knows for sure. I hope when I get to heaven I will see Mary standing there with a big smile on her face. And I hope her husband finally learned that “Ain’t no preachers all that bad.”