Give to Someone Who Can't Give Back

08-29-2021The Pastor's PenFr. Matthew R. Paratore, S.T.L., J.C.L.

Dear Friend,

A pastor friend wrote to me about an article in a campus publication where a young nurse writes of her pilgrimage of learning to see in a patient the image of God beneath a very “distressing disguise. ”

Eileen was one of her first patients, a person who was totally helpless. “A cerebral aneurysm (broken blood vessels in the brain) had left her with no conscious control over her body,” the nurse writes. As near as the doctors could tell Eileen was totally unconscious, unable to feel pain and unaware of anything going on around her.

It was the job of the hospital staff to turn her every hour to prevent bedsores and to feed her twice a day, “what looked like a thin mush through a stomach tube. ” Caring for her was a thankless task. “When it’s this bad,” and older student nurse told her, “you have to detach yourself emotionally from the whole situation… ” As a result, more and more Eileen came to be treated as a thing, a vegetable. But the young student nurse decided that she could not treat Eileen like the others had treated her. She talked to her, sang to her, encouraged her and even brought her little gifts.

One day when things were especially difficult and it would have been easy for the young nurse to take out her frustrations on the patient, she was especially kind.

It was Thanksgiving Day and the nurse said to the patient, “I was in a cruddy mood this morning, Eileen, because it was supposed to be my day off. But now that I’m here, I’m glad. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss seeing you on Thanksgiving. Do you know this is Thanksgiving?”

Just then the telephone rang, and as the nurse turned to answer it, she looked quickly back at the patient. Suddenly, she writes, Eileen was “looking at me … crying. Big damp circles stained her pillow, and she was shaking all over. ”

That was the only human emotion that Eileen ever showed any of them, but it was enough to change the whole attitude of the hospital staff toward her.

Not long afterward, Eileen died.

The young nurse closes her story, saying, “I keep thinking about her. It occurred to me that I owe her an awful lot. Except for Eileen, I might never have known what it’s like to give myself to someone who can’t give back.”

Even in the most confusing and uncertain moments, pray always and never lose heart.

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