Journal of Sacred Work

   Deadre Hall knows as much about sudden life change as anyone I know. A neuro-intensive care nurse for nearly four decades, she has seen the shock on the faces of families and friends.

   "'He was fine when he left for work this morning,' they will tell me,'" Hall says. "People wake up and head off and the next thing they know they are lying in the intensive care unit. We never know."

   No, we don't. Unless we're scheduled to die on Death Row at a particular time on a particular date, we don't know which day will be our last.

   I think of sudden change at least twice a day now when I pass beneath a new sign the Tennessee Highway Department has posted on Interstate Freeways. It records traffic accident deaths. 

   The sign also says, "Don't be the next [to die]"

   The number is new every morning. None of those people expected they would be the next.

   Caregivers live right next to sudden change every day.

   Over and over, patients come into Emergency Departments reciting the same line: "It all happened so fast,": they say, describing their accident. Of course, if accidents happened in slow motion, most of them wouldn't occur.

   "Code Blue!" the PA system announces. Someone has had a heart attack. Caregivers race to stave off death.

   In hospitals and hospices, patients can change consciousness in radical ways. Many caregivers expect death as an everyday way of life.

   Most interesting of all is how easily we retreat from the news that our own death will arrive at the door of heart and break in.

   Theoretically, we have to engage in denial of death. Otherwise we would be paralyzed.

   Maybe this is wrong thinking. Amid our strength, appreciation of our fragile hold on life can enhance our appreciation of the only thing we have – the present moment.

   Caregivers are better positioned to take advantage of this opportunity than others. Those with a Servant's Heart live gratitude everyday. Other caregivers may subconsciously think of themselves as beyond Death.

   There is always a risk of arrogance in caregiving. "I am strong, skilled and healthy," a caregiver may imagine, "the patient before me is weak, ignorant and sick." 

   This kind of thought process can create a power hierarchy that can defeats Radical Loving Care. All it takes to remind us we have been thinking like this is to suddenly fall ill ourselves. 

   How many times have you heard a newly hospitalized caregiver say, "Gee, I never knew what it was like to be on the other side."

   Our health can change in a millisecond. Perhaps, a renewed awareness of this can awaken our deepest compassion for those to whom this has happened – on this day, in this very moment.

-Erie Chapman