There’s so much I love about writing memoir.
I love looking back and pulling up remembrances of people, places, and events that make up my past. I love taking all of those details and recreating scenes that I can then pull together and craft into a story. And because it’s memoir, it’s all true. I’d be the first person to admit that I don’t have a great imagination, so writing nonfiction suits me just fine.
I’ve mentioned before in this space that I’m currently writing my first memoir. It’s based on my experiences as a hospital chaplain and my emotional healing afterward. I’ve shared bits and pieces of a couple of the trauma cases, but I started thinking this past week that I haven’t really shared any of the more joyful moments with you … the moments that lifted me up, even on what might have been an otherwise difficult day.
No such story fits that description better than the story of Charles Haas (his family has graciously given me permission to use his real name in my writing). I met Charles on what was, perhaps, my most challenging day as a chaplain, April 7, 2008. To say that he saved me that day is not at all an overstatement.
The night before, two-year-old Darisabel Baez (her name is public record because of what happened) was flown to Hershey Med after having been brutally beaten by her mother’s boyfriend. I was the chaplain on-call when she was rushed into a trauma bay on a gurney.
Soon after arriving at the hospital on the morning of April 7, 2008, I learned from Darisabel’s doctor that she was most likely already brain-dead, and life support would probably be removed by evening (this becomes an uplifting story, I promise).
As you might imagine, I felt completely distracted by all that was going on in Darisabel’s room in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) on the seventh floor. But I knew there were other patients who deserved visits as well.
I wasn’t in the mood for it. The thought of striking up a pleasant conversation with a stranger didn’t sit well. However, in my continuing effort to show my supervisor that I could function well amidst trauma, I pushed on. In the early afternoon, I chose four names from the patient list laying on the table in the Pastoral Services Conference Room, and set off for the elevator and the sixth floor.
My first visit would be to an eighty-year-old male patient named Charles Haas. I think I instinctively chose the oldest of the four patients as my first stop. I’ve always had a good rapport with seniors. As a chaplain, I found older folks to be the friendliest and most appreciative of a visit, I suppose because many of them don’t get many.
It was 2:00 pm when I arrived at Room #6245. The door to the room was open part-way. I knocked lightly and slowly pushed the door back another foot or so, peeking in as the opening widened.
“Mr. Haas?”
“Yes, come on in!” he said, sounding like he was inviting a neighbor in for a cup of coffee.
With my left hand still on the upper edge of the door, I pushed it back the rest of the way and stepped further into the room.
And there he was. Sitting up in bed with a couple of pillows stacked up behind him. Gold, metal-trimmed eyeglasses on, a newspaper resting in his lap on top of a milky-white hospital blanket and rumpled sheets. He was clean-shaven, with his thick, white hair neatly parted and combed to the right. His eyes were bluish-grey and bright. Based on the size of his upper torso, extending up from the blanket and clothed in blue cotton pajamas, and the spot towards the foot of the bed where I could see his toes creating a tent under the sheets and blanket, I could tell that he was a tall and substantial man, perhaps a couple hundred pounds.
He smiled. I smiled back.
“Hi, Mr. Haas,” I said in as pleasant a voice as I could pull above the ache in my chest. “My name’s Teresa, I’m the Catholic chaplain. How are you today?”
I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to sound happy. I wanted to act professionally and put my own feelings aside in order to provide pastoral care to this patient, but I didn’t have much “cheerful” in me right then and there.
“Well, Teresa, it’s nice to meet you. Thank you for stopping by.”
“You’re quite welcome.”
Mr. Haas extended his right hand and we joined hands in a firm, but not uncomfortable, clasp.
What happened next was quite a surprise. Considering how tired and disheartened I felt at that moment, it was the last thing I expected.
When Charles and I shook hands, I felt like I had just wrapped my hand around a lifeline. There was something about this man. His smile, his warmth, his … I don’t know. It was all of him, coming to me in that particular moment … when I needed some kind of relief. It didn’t make everything ok. There was still a two-year-old girl upstairs dying. But I could feel the tightened muscles in my stomach, jaw, and forehead start to relax slightly. The lifeline was starting to draw me into the Sanctuary of Charles Haas. All of a sudden Charles and Room 6245 had become a respite from all that was going on in Pediatric ICU.
We slowly released each other’s hand.
“How are you feeling today?” I asked.
“Better today. I have some problems with my heart. I got here two days ago, but feel better than I did then. It’s been a rough couple of months. My wife just died in February, from congestive heart failure.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that. What was her name?”
“Janet. We were married fifty-seven years. And you know what? During one of her hospital stays she was in this room too. That’s a coincidence, isn’t it?”
“It sure is. And I’m very impressed you remember something like that!” I wondered if my own husband would remember such a detail.
I pulled a chair up next to Charles’s bed and took a seat. We talked, we laughed. It went on like that for forty-five minutes. Charles sharing tender vignettes from the full life he had shared with his wife over all those years, and me, interjecting occasionally, but otherwise happy to sit, listen, smile, and breathe. It was like salve on an open wound.
“My wife and I dedicated the first thirty-five years of our marriage to our family, and we spent the last twenty-two years on a spiritual journey. We even took a trip to Calcutta, India in 1988 and spent time with Mother Teresa.”
Oh. My. Goodness. I had never before, and haven’t since, met anyone who had actually met Mother Teresa, now Saint Teresa of Calcutta. And here was this man who met her in the flesh, stood right there with her and shook her hand. Maybe even gave her a hug for all I know. On a day when I so wanted to feel God’s presence, Charles Haas, hand-shaker of Mother Teresa, came into my life, or, rather, I walked into his.
Now, I’m not trying to make this sound like the second coming. But, I mean, what are the chances? The man in front of me had touched holiness. It was enough to make a difference that day.
I looked at Charles’ face and I couldn’t help but smile. I listened to him talk about life and love and faith, and for forty-five minutes I forgot—or at least didn’t think as much—about senseless cruelty and a two-year-old girl’s battered and bruised body and imminent death. I wanted to make sense of the senseless and demystify the mysterious, but all I could do was rest in it.
Charles transported me away from my own pain and into the world of his benevolent humanity. But I was the Chaplain. I was supposed to be the comforter. Yet, Charles was comforting me. I didn’t try to fight it. My soul absorbed his kindness, like a plant absorbing sunlight.
As I was getting ready to pray with Charles, a thirty-something year-old woman walked into the room. She was slender, with a friendly face, narrow nose, and wavy, blond, shoulder length hair. She was dressed in pale green scrubs and the rubber clogs I often noticed being worn by doctors and nurses who had been in surgery. She walked in casually, carrying a coat and lunch bag.
Charles smiled at the first sight of her.
“Ah Diana! Teresa, this is my daughter Diana. She works here at the hospital.”
“Diana, so nice to meet you. I’m the chaplain, and I have to tell you, I’m having more fun with your dad than I ought to.”
“Thank you for visiting. And I know, he can be a charmer!”
She went around to the right side of her father’s bed, the window side, placed her left hand on his, squeezed, and leaned over to kiss his forehead. It struck me how much Diana’s sweet and gentle traits mimicked her dad’s. She continued holding his hand.
“Diana, where do you work in the hospital?”
“I’m an OR nurse. I just finished my shift and thought I’d spend some time with dad before heading home.”
My visit with them last a little longer. How I wanted to stay there and bask in the love and safety of The Sanctuary of Charles Haas. When I said goodbye, it was with both my hands wrapped around Charles’ right hand. I pressed gently into his skin, wanting my touch to somehow transmit a message to Charles, letting him know how much the past hour had meant to me. How much I had needed it … and him.
“The Lord sent you today,” he said.
I gave him a slight smile and thought, The Lord sent you to me, Charles.
“Thank you, Mr. Haas. I’ve really enjoyed being here with you.”
I said goodbye to Diana, turned, gave a little wave, and headed for the door and down the corridor.
After a short break to digest my visit with Charles and Diana, I made three more patient visits, limiting each one to about fifteen minutes.
The only visit left, after that, was the one waiting for me in PICU, and that wasn’t so much a visit as it was keeping vigil. I walked back into the unit at 5:00 pm. Darisabel had, by then, failed two of the three brain criteria tests required before her family could request that life support be removed. The third test was performed at 9:00 pm, life support was removed, and Darisabel passed shortly thereafter.
I thank God that Darisabel’s death is not the only memory I have of April 7, 2008. I also have my very own Charles and Diana, without the royal pedigree. They were royalty to me just the same, assuming a place in my life that’s rare for a chance encounter. I suppose that’s very much the reason for the joy of it all, along with the fact that it may not have been by chance at all.
(Note: Another chapter in my relationship with Charles and Diana occurred in 2009, a story which I will share in my memoir.)
(Photo by Dyu-ha on Unsplash)
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Tess
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