Wiccan Whirlpool

I went to the hospital to sit with R this evening.  It was my first day trip in, and it was weird to sit with somebody in a well-lit room!  Her childhood friend was sitting with her, but was due to leave so she didn’t have to drive in the dark.  They met when the friend was 2, and had remained friends for 76 years.  R has no family in the US, she told me, but I think this friend certainly qualifies as family.

She was a strong woman, that’s for sure!  Three heart attacks since Friday, and she still was determined to keep breathing.  Until yesterday her friend said she was still talking…amazing.  When I arrived I was sure she would pass while I was there, but she held on.  For all I know she’s still going, and I’m glad to know that another volunteer was there when I left.

In the last three weeks I’ve actually received three NODA activations but I’ve needed to attend only one patient, whom I will call A.  Sitting with A was a most amazing experience.  I was amazed at how comfortable I felt and how easily I fell into the roll of companion.  A was not conscious, and was not aware on any level I could detect.  When I arrived at the hospital at about 11:30 PM to relieve another volunteer her vitals were stable.  At about midnight she stopped urinating, but her vitals stayed strong if a little low the entire time I was there.  I could tell she wasn’t in any pain, even before Ted the wonderful ICU nurse assured me that she was being given plenty of medication to insure that she was comfortable.  It took a little while to get used to hearing her gurggly and uneven breathing, but soon it was hardly noticable.  I had decided I would use my time with her to catch up on some reading that I don’t usually get to do at home–”The Road to Hel” by HR Ellis-Davidson.  In between sections I’d talk to A a bit and pat her arm to let her know I was there.  I would have held her hand, but she was covered up to her chin and looked quite comfortable as she was and I didn’t want to disturb her.  Ted checked on us a lot and really went out of his way to make sure that I was ok with A.

At one point, while I sat with her, I thought I might try a bit of spirit communication to reach her through trance.  Here she was, not expected to live until sunrise, determinedly drawing each breath and then another…maybe if I could tell her that it was ok to go she’d be more willing to vacate.  So trance I did.  Because of my tired state and the weirdness of the situation I didn’t have any trouble, and I didn’t have far to go.  It was easy to get to where she was, but it was not easy to get through to her.  She wasn’t afraid to go, she was simply totally resistant to change.  There was no use in me saying anything about it.  A would have to just go when her body wouldn’t allow her to stay any more.  Interestingly enough, when I came out of trance I realized that there was someone standing at the foot of her bed across from me.  I don’t have any idea who it was, but it felt like a parent or grandparent, and he or she was there to wait for A to finally let go or be pushed out, and ready to hold her hand on the way to wherever it was they were going.  I don’t know if Ted had a sense of this, or if the next volunteer did either, but it was nice to know that someone had come for her.

A didn’t die while I was there, and I left at 3:30 AM.  Her obituary stated that she did die sometime that day, but it didn’t say what time.  I’m truly blessed to have been able to sit with her, learn from her, and offer her what comfort I could in some of her final hours.  Having done this once I am actually eager to do it again, and I highly recommend this as a volunteer opportunity to anyone who lives near a hospital that provides a NODA program.

Questions?  Post a reply.

Our last No One Dies Alone training class was yesterday.  We talked a little bit about what the volunteers should do and where we go to find stuff.  The last three of us shared our death stories.

I spoke about my father’s death and the fact that I was not there.  We had such a poor relationship that when my mom called to tell me he was dead my first thought was “he did this on purpose.”  You see, it was three days before my 30th birthday and I was pregnant with my second child.  Dad simply had to be the center of my mother’s attention, and I figured that she had probably been talking a lot about grandchild #3 and my impending decade change.  So he took her to work and kept her brand new car for the day and proceeded to fall asleep at the wheel on the way home, T-Bone a truck and killed himself.  I still think he was either over-drugged or drunk.  So I buried my dad on my 30th birthday after flying halfway across the country at the last minute with my 15-month-old, my husband, and my pregnant self.  It’s hard to say I miss him because for the last ten years he had barely been present, even when he was physically there.

I admit I’m still a little honked-off about the whole thing.  Now every birthday I get to remember my dad’s funeral.  Yipee!  It’s fair to say I’m still sad, too.  Dad and I were a lot alike and it’s a shame that he worked so hard to destroy our relationship and never tried to heal it.  It hurts to think about the fact that my own dad didn’t care enough about me to care that he hurt me so badly or so often or to say he was sorry.

Lately he’s tried to contact me.  I don’t think I’m prepared to deal with that, nor do I feel like letting him get off that easy.  I don’t know where he’s been for the last two and a half years, but it hasn’t been Here.  He’d like to say something now, but frankly I’m in the middle of making dinner and I don’t have the time or inclination for going into a trance just for him.  Whatever it is it can wait.

Maybe the next time I go to visit my uncle I’ll set aside some time for him.

As I walked into class yesterday our instructor was telling the group about a Hebrew myth that essentially says that in the beginning god was everywhere, but in order for creation to happen he had to make space and so he withdrew.  This was a teaching she finds useful and representative of how you must be in order to serve the dying.  In order to be there for them you must withdrawal from the immediacy and emotionality of the situation.  While I believe that I understand what she means I do not agree that this is a Truth.  The Mystery that leads to Truth is that the Infinite Unknowable First Cause cannot cease to be infinite and is therefor present in Its creation.  It has not withdrawn from us but made space within Itself to encompass us.  This is selflessness–though saying that is in and of itself an oxymoron.  I suppose rather that it is self-fullness, but that’s a difficult word (if it is actually a word) and an unusual concept for western minds.

Withdrawing is not the answer.  We must make sufficient space within our Self to allow for the experience of the dying person.  This is an act of adding something, not taking it away.  We also have infinte room within our selves if we are willing to work to find it.  In this way we are like to god.

Otherwise session three was like a big group therapy session and it was very interesting.  We went around the room taking turns sharing an experience we had or didn’t get to have with a dying person.  The last three of us didn’t have time to share our stories but we will be given time for that next week.  It’s an interesting mix of people with an interesting set of stories to share.  Some were about parents and grandparents, both positive and negative experiences.  Two people shared stories about premature babies that had died in their presence.  All of the stories were quite touching.  It was an interesting strategy to use.  By having us share our pain and our joys we each learned and grew as a person and in emotional strength from the sharing.

My sincerest hope is that I will learn much from the dying.  Not only for my own benefit, but to have something to give back to the Pagan community as well.   

Today is Columbus Day, a mostly bugus federal holiday that celebrates Christopher Columbus getting lost on his way to India and nearly getting thrown overboard but not quite and landing on an island just south of Florida to bring Syphiliis, Measles, and Small Pox to the Native population.  Being that it is a federal holiday I don’t have to fo to work at the bank.  So instead I chose to get my hospital volunteer orientation under my belt.  The result was one long-ass day.

I got my kids to daycare about ten and then went right to orientation.  The hospital is expanding so everything is a diaster.  Almost unbelievably I managed to find a spot on the first floor of the new parking deck and caught a shuttle that was just leaving for the main entrance.  Class began at 10:30 AM and I arrived right on time.  For two hours we fiulled out forms and were lectured on HIPAA, universal precaution, and what I can only think of as common sense customer service.  Whereas at NODA training I’m the youngest by maybe ten years here I felt down right infantile.  The room was full of truly ancient women who are no doubt quite eager to help out in the numerous gift shops to while away some of their retirement time.  After two hours we were given meal tickets for lunch.  I was highly impressed with the hospital cafeteria.  After lunch I still had half an hour to kill before I could get my TB test done, so I got my picture taken for my volunteer ID and then went to visit our NODA instructor in her office.  We chatted, and then I hoofed it over to the Employee Health department to get stuck for the test.  When I finally left the hospital it was 2:15, and I had just enough time to get some gas and get to my doctor’s appointment. After that I rushed out to the grocery and then I picked up my kids at about 5pm, came home and started supper.  I’m just now getting to sit down.  So much for a day “off!”

Tomorrow I have an early meeting and then NODA class again.

whew…

I’ve really been putting a lot of thought into this over the last several days and I think I finally put my finger on some of what was bothering me.  First, one of the ideas that the chaplain was pushing is that god loves everyone.  It makes me sound like an ass to say that I don’t really believe that, but then again I don’t believe that the Great Unknowable First Cause has much in the way of feeling in general.  Spirit seeks attunement with Spirit, I’ll give you that much.  The Divine in us calles to the Divine without.  Perhaps you can call that love.  Most people probably don’t really think that through so deeply.  But when you meet someone for the first time on their deathbed how can you judge them at all for good or ill?  Maybe what they’re headed for is a well-deserved peace and reunion with loved-ones, and maybe it isn’t.  Maybe they’ve worked really hard their entire life preparing their very own little hell and they’re distressed because they know it’s coming.  What good will it do to tell them that god loves them at that point?

Along that train of thought–the chaplain spoke about her experience with an elderly man who was dying alone on her watch.  The man had a son who had been estranged for many years, and when he knew he was dying he tried to call him but the son wouldn’t return his calls.  Here is this person, she said, who is reaching out in his final hours and getting no response.  You’d think, she said, that at this time the son could have set aside their differences and come to his father to see him one last time. Supposedly, the reason this doesn’t happen is that people fear the emotions such a reunion might bring out.  While she admirably seeks to not judge the dying person she very obviously is passing a kind of judgement on the son in this story.  What if the father was such an evil person in life that the only way the son could continue was to leave him forever behind and move on?  We must remember that if we’re going to offer compassion to one party we must offer compassion to the other.  Sometimes the only way to forgive a person who has done you terrible hurt is to remove that person from your life forever and as entirely as possible.

Tomorrow I’m going in for volunteer orientation.  That’ll be two hours or so.  Woohoo!

Yesterday was our second training session for NODA-No One Dies Alone. We talked about the movie “Wit” that we had watched in the previous section, and we talked about what we can expect to encounter in regards to the behavior and symptoms of a person who is dying.  Next time we’re supposed to find out more about what we actually do while we’re there at the bedside, and each person who is willing will have time to share an experience they’ve had with a dying person.  It almost seems like I’m the odd one out here, because I have never yet been near anyone who is in the dying process.  I haven’t even been witness to any of my pets when they’ve died.  Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why I’m seeking out this experience.  I know I need to learn about it before I’m blind-sided by it.

I do find that I feel like an outsider at times.  The woman teaching the class is a hospital chaplain, and it seems very obvious that this woman is a Christian of some denomination.  She spoke a lot about talking about God with the dying people she’s attended.  While I realize that many of these people probably were also Christian I found that it made me a little uncomfortable.  Usually I’m not uncomfortable around other spiritual people who are simply making an honest religious expression, so I’m wondering why this bothered me the way it did.  Maybe it’s because I feel like dying is such a personal and private thing.  And maybe it’s because I have trouble justifying speaking of articles of faith that are unverifyable even to offer comfort.  However, I also know that I have no experience with the dying, and maybe it’s a justifyable practice as long as you aren’t actually pushing a particular religious belief.

There’s just so much to learn.

I need to do something rewarding, something fulfilling, something that will make the world a better place.  I also need to be able to do it at weird hours.  No, amazingly enough, being a bank teller just doesn’t fulfill me spiritually.  I spend at least 40 hours a week counting money and selling bank products.  It’s an ok job and it has benefits I need, but it doesn’t nurture my soul.  Learning about death and dying and being there for some pour sould who whould otherwise pass on alone sound like it’s a hellishly hard thing, and yet remarkably satisfying.  I know I’ll learn a lit, which is intrisically good for me, but will also be good for my religious community.

Wiccan ministers don’t get a lot of oportunities that the “mainstream” has for ministerial training.  Between this and the CPE I hope to take one day I HOPE I’ll be able to offer better ministerial asiistance to those folks who need it.

Some people don’t see that point of a “professional” Wiccan clergy, but being a minister isn’t something you wake up and have the ability to do one morning.  It takes a long time and effort to learn all of the things that might be expected of you.  It *is* a lot of fun though…