Journal of Sacred Work

 "…life's waves crash in on us, taking back, leaving remnants and loss on her shore." – Liz Wessel

   I happened to read Liz's weekend essay about balance and loss at an odd time. Just prior to seeing it, I had spent an hour looking at home movies of my family in 1990. Whether you have home movies, or scrapbooks, or other ways of recollecting, you know the poignancy of remembering.

   "Life's waves" from that year twenty years ago crashed in on me as I looked at my father, energetic at eighty-five, dead five years later; at my late father-in-law, a physician caregiver, and my late mother-in-law, a caregiver as a teacher, mother, and nurse to her stroke-ridden husband in his last six years. 

   The only survivor of that generation is my mother a caregiver to her four children. She celebrated her 98th birthday on August 21.

   Most of all, I was struck by the images of my daughter, graduating from Andover and headed to Harvard that year, and my son (at left) just graduated from Harvard and working, at the time, in public service at a charity called City Year. Both children are now caregivers for their own children.

   There we all were, gathered around the Thanksgiving dinner table and then, later, appearing on the screen during the Christmas of 1990. The images have been hidden on videotape for two decades. They will be seen, if at all, only by the very few who are interested.

   For my wife, the pictures are too hard to watch just now. They awaken melancholy for what has been "lost on the shore" instead of joy.

   I was startled to see my forty-six-year old self on the screen, ten pounds lighter and looking like a kid at my own kid's graduations. I was president of Ohio's Riverside Methodist Hospital at that time and supervised the eleven thousand caregivers of the ten-hospital U.S. Health System. I thought (falsely, of course) I was a big deal back then and some part of me thought that time - our kids young, my wife and I in our forties -would last forever.  

   I wondered what Liz wrote about. What are the losses that you, as a caregiver, suffer as you dedicate yourselves to serving others outside their families?

   Every person who loves another is a caregiver. The time we spend doing that is never wasted. Still, life can often seem out of balance as we juggle family and work.  

   Obviously, we all need to make a living. Caregivers almost never get rich from their work. Yet, I can think of no calling more worthwhile. 

   The most important thing any of us can do is live Love by serving others. Anyone who follows their calling does that. Artists live Love by bringing beauty into the lives of others. If they are really good, they bring beauty into the lives of those who live long after them.

   I know a loving caregiver named Diana Gallaher who brightens the lives of elderly people who are at risk for being ignored. I know a world-class story teller named Minton Sparks who lives Love by bringing the light of her gifts to thousands. Both these women understand that all of our lives are stories. Whenever Ms. Sparks performs, she awakens the life stories of those in her audiences and their eyes shine with recollection.

   I know a former hospice executive named Karen York who spent an important chapter of her career helping people discover the power of Radical Loving Care.  I know a mission director at Saint Joseph Health System in California named Liz Wessel. She brings light to her work and, because of the way she lives Love, has brought joy to her family and friends as well.  

   Most caregivers I know sacrifice enormous amounts of their time on earth to heal those who will never remember them. Yet, their gifts involve bringing God's living water to those thirsty with need.  

   I thought of Jesus. Childless himself, his Love lights the lives of billions of God's children. 

   We are all children of God. From Moses to Jesus and now to us, caregivers know how powerful God's gift of Love can be. 

   There is loss on the shores of our lives, loss that rises and falls with each ebb and flow of life's waves. The sea also presents great gifts. 

   We can leave no greater treasure on the sands of the world than God's Love. In the giving of this gift, caregivers live the best energy of the eternal.

   Caregivers are fortunate. God has blessed them all.

-Rev. Erie Chapman 

NOTE: ON August 26 we will celebrate the first ever Caregiver's Day. On that date, the Journal will honor not only the anniversary of Mother Theresa's birth, but the gifts all caregiver's bring to the world.