An Homage to Oncology Nurses, et. al.

I cannot wipe away your tears, my dear.

I can only teach you how to make them holy.

--Anthony De Mello

Recently I led a memorial service at the hospital where I work to honor the many cancer patients who died this year, as well as the Oncology nurses, physicians, physical therapists, dietitians, case managers, and just about everyone who has a role in caring for them. Several people have since asked for the remarks I made at the beginning of the service. Fortunately I wrote them down the night before in a bit of a frenzied rush. That means I didn't have time to get in my own way, thus allowing the Spirit to flow. Here is what came:

We come together today to remember those cancer patients who died: To remember how we loved them and how they loved us. 

We also come together to honor the work that we do--our labor of love--because at the end of the day that is really what our work is about: whether or not we realize it, whether or not we feel it, whether or not we live up to Love's demands. 

We do our jobs and we do them well:
We order diagnostic tests and interpret results.
We administer medications.
We draw blood for labs.
We bathe our patients.
We make sure they have adequate nutrition.
We help them get out of bed to regain physical strength.
We arrange for them to go home with everything they need.
We keep their environment tidy, clean, and safe. 

Everyday we do so much yet in the midst of it all we are doing something even greater: I'm talking about the human connection we make--some might call it the sacred connection we make--when we care for our patients. 

We come to love them. We see them when they first come to us, perhaps with a new diagnosis of cancer. We see them frightened but also full of hope--hope for healing, hope for recovery. We come to know them as they struggle through treatment: We learn about their lives, their families, where they grew up, what they did for work, how they met their spouse, what they believe in. On this leg of the journey we find our patients still hopeful, but wavering at times, wondering will they get better, is the fight worth all the pain and suffering, why is God allowing this to happen. 

And sometimes, after years or maybe even weeks or months, they return and we know-and they know--that something is different this time: They are not getting better. The healing we had all hoped and prayed for is not to be. Life in this world is coming to an end. 

In this moment all seems lost and we begin to feel anxious and sad with our patients, who are no longer patients to us anymore but friends or brothers or sisters. We've been on a journey together and we've arrived at a crossroads or a threshold. We've reached the limit of what medical treatments can do. We say there's no more hope but that's not really true. It all come down to how we understand hope. 

If our hope is based solely on the happily-ever-after outcomes of our own actions and interventions, then all hope is truly lost. But if our hope is rooted in something deeper--something eternal--then nothing, not even death, can take it from us. 

I want each of us to remember that, when we come to this threshold between life and death, whether with our patients, our loved ones, or even ourselves, we are standing on holy ground. We may not be able to treat the disease any longer. We may not be able to cure. But we can still heal. 

How? Because of the love that we have cultivated and shared all these weeks and months and years. We heal because our presence assures our patients that we will continue to care for them until the end, that we will not abandon them when they become helpless or when they suffer.

We heal because we can do less and be more. We can wipe a tear, hold a hand, embrace; we can pray, we can sing. We heal because even as physical life fades, we continue to celebrate all of who this person is and what she has meant--and will continue to mean--to us.