The Job

I hardly ever look because I really don't want to know the number. But tonight I did, I looked at the obituaries. One of my patients had a sweet wife who blogged regularly about their journey. Her last blog entry was a link to his obituary. So, against my better judgement, I clicked on the link.

I knew three tonight on the death notice list. So I read all three and laughed at some of the details I already knew. We have had a lot of deaths this week on our little team. Today I could feel the impact in the room as everyone suddenly got tearful. I don't cry much, but today was hard.

It is hard because we had some long time patients that died. Hard because we had some ethical issues that I still haven't sorted out in my mind. Hard because we have had an amazingly high number of young patients with young children. Hard because of good questions without good answers. Hard because the job is so fast paced there is absolutely no time to sit and process anything. Hard simply because it is a hard job.

I ended the day talking to the spouse of another young patient. I choked back tears as he discussed her now very rapid decline. He is always so calm and organized. He discussed their daughters. He was discussing some of their behaviors and I gently pointed out they were being very "girl" in some ways. I told him a couple of things about girls that I could honestly tell he didn't really know. He's a really good dad and my heart broke as we talked. This is the kind of thing his wife would have told him, if she wasn't so sick. Although that thought was never spoken between us, it didn't have to be. Our call wrapped up with a scheduled visit for me to see those precious girls again. He told me that one of the daughters asked him why this would happen to their mom if God is supposedly good. We joked that we were glad our chaplain is joining me during the next visit. Then, I asked him some questions and suggested she is only asking what most adults are thinking. For the first time, I heard the emotion in his voice when he agreed. For a while, I just listened. They are strong Christians, so we talked briefly about the Bible. I gently posed the thought that God hates death too, which is why He sent Jesus to conquer it. This husband agreed.

Hard because it just is. Hard because God is good even when nothing around us feels like it.

Hard because we still live on this side of His soon coming Kingdom...