Journal of Sacred Work

   We know them. Yet they are not seen or remembered by name. They are the legions of loving caregivers who tended our ancestors, gave their compassion & their skill to strangers, lived with the golden thread of healing in their hands…

From 1893-1926 she rose most days at dawn, neatened her thousand-threaded hair, drew her uniform about her, slipped her feet into quiet shoes, came to care for your great grandfather & the other ten men in the ward, helping them to rise, spooning porridge into their mouths, sponging their weathered
backs.
From 1926-1949, he worked the night shift, mopping the linoleum floors of the hospital that has since been torn down, raking dirt beneath incandescence, smiling to those among the sick who saw
him.
Each day & night, from July 2, 1863 to July 7, 1863, beneath the steaming canvas, amid the stench of blood & death, she laid wetted towels on the faces of fallen soldiers as surgeons sawed off their legs & cut away their arms. Later, she read the Bible to the newly blind, sang soft into their fear,
smiled.
Just before nightfall, November 12, 738, he opened the door of Hotel Dieu de Paris to yet another man in rags, helped him across the threshold to an open place on the floor, gave him water, fed him, held his
hand.
On the night of January 5^th, 1950, he wrapped chains around the tires of his black Plymouth, drove it across snow slick Wisconsin roads, entered a weathered farmhouse, washed his hands twice, guided triplets out of their mother & into their first home. Lacking an incubator, he laid them on a blanket on the open door of the oven, tended them & their mother until dawn when he drove off to his office of waiting
patients.
After the priest passed by and the Levite turned his back, the Samaritan knelt to tend the pain of the wounded stranger by the road, lifted him aboard his animal, led him to an inn, paid for his
care.
A month after she was laid off as a nurse’s aid, no one could remember her name. A day after he retired, his name badge was recycled. After the nursing home closed, she who cared for others lived but six more months, dying alone in her
sleep.

Tonight, all these spirits walk the halls of hospitals, hospices, nursing homes. They stand at bedsides in rural shacks where pain needs healing, whisper to us to feed the homeless, touch the ‘untouchable’, love the

‘unlovable’.

They are the unknown caregivers who once held the golden thread of healing in their hands. They have no tomb. No place to rest but heaven. One day, we who hold the golden thread may join

them.