Beyond their dedication and devotion to caring for those in need, the alumni of Riverside Methodist, Baptist and the now-closed Riverside in Toledo, all hospitals I was privileged to lead, have already accomplished something else. They have survived.
When CBS Sunday Morning (the best program on television) described the 25th anniversary of the "Survivor" today, I thought of you. You did not play in some pretend t.v. show. You did the real thing.
After that segment, CBS profiled a Fox reporter who survived a bomb blast while covering the Russo-Ukrainian War. His two partners did not.
We have seen such segments. This one seemed different.
The explosion blew off his right leg, nearly did the same to his left, and blinded his left eye. It was not just his courage or persistence. It was his matter-of-fact recounting of his profound suffering.
A doctor tells him on camera, "We're going to remove your left eye now."
"Sure," the patient says, as if headed to lunch. "Let's go."
No dramatization. No self-pity. Beyond surviving, he was thriving.
If you cared for patients, you know suffering. If you worked in the ER for 45 years like Riverside's Sue Finefrock, R.N.(picture) or Donna Mason, R.N. (Baptist) you treated countless trauma victims. Thank you!
After my mother turned 105, people kept asking her "Trick." "Genes" she would say (actually, she walked three miles every day and lived moderately.)
Her survival advice when I was in distress was never pity. "One foot in front of the other, Chip Chapman," she would say as matter-of-factly as the wounded journalist.
Congratulations on surviving your caregiving career, especially those days when you thought, "I'm sick of the suffering, dying, bad smells, screams, thrown bed pans…"
No one knows if they will live to retirement. You did!
How fortunate for everyone around you.
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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