On the morning of my first day of chaplaincy internship, I knocked on the first door of the unit to which I had been assigned.  After a pause, I opened it to find Ann, a woman in her 60s, sitting in bed, staring at a plate of scrambled eggs.  She looked over at me, expressionless, and asked me to come back after she’d had time to eat breakfast.  I agreed and departed, excited that someone actually wanted to talk with me.  When I returned 20 minutes later Ann motioned toward a chair near her bed.  I sat down and she began.

“I’m here because my kidneys are failing.  I’ve been on dialysis for years, but that can go on for only so long.  I’ve been on a transplant waitlist for more than a year, but apparently I’m a difficult match.  One of my nephews turns out to be an excellent match, and he eagerly agreed to donate.  I came in yesterday for workups in preparation for a transplant.

“Just before my breakfast arrived, my doctor came in to tell me that my health has deteriorated to the point that I am no longer considered an acceptable risk for a transplant.  There’s nothing more that can be done beyond helping me to live out my remaining time comfortably.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” I replied.  “That’s really difficult news to get.  I’m here for you in any way you would find helpful.”

In a flash Ann was painting vivid images of herself as a little girl growing up on a farm.  Dreams of becoming a veterinarian that evolved into a career as an industrial scientist, breaking glass ceilings along the way.  Dreams of finding true love that never came true, “just a bad marriage that I had the sense to get out of quickly.”  Dreams of having children of her own that were replaced by a bevy of nieces and nephews who adored her (including the aspiring kidney donor).  Close friends who had supported her throughout her illness, and were prepared to support her for the rest of her days.

“You know, as I listen to myself telling you all this, I realize it’s been a great life,” Ann said through tears.  “I’m sad that it’s coming to an end, but I really can’t complain—I have a lot to be grateful for.  Thank you for taking the time to listen.  It’s made today’s bad news easier to bear.”

Before I stepped into Ann’s room, I had grand, if vague, notions of what being a chaplain would feel like.  I had learned many dos and don’ts, and how to chart a visit in the medical record.  I don’t think anything could have prepared me, though, for the reality of sitting in Ann’s chair and hearing her news.  I said to myself, “You said you wanted to be a chaplain.  I don’t know what you were thinking, but it’s ‘Game on’—right now.”

At any rate, Ann was the perfect first patient for me.  Her plight stirred my heart but did not overwhelm me, and it took no effort to draw her out.  She was bright, reflective, and insightful, and she glided easily between happiness, wistfulness, pride, sadness, and gratitude as she told the stories of her life.

Fortunately, the essential elements of chaplaincy are compassionate presence and active listening, and most of us come equipped with at least the basics.  There is more than I ever realized to practicing these well, and either can be hard to do in a given situation, but most of us practice them regularly with family and friends.  I am often surprised when people say, “I could never do what you are doing,” when I have watched those same people do this work beautifully—including with me.

As I closed the door on my way out, I told myself, “OK, I wasn’t so bad.  In fact, it seems I was helpful even if all I did was listen.”  I went back to my office to chart my visit.  I reviewed a list of descriptors of what I had helped the patient explore, and I checked a box marked “Life Review.”  I thought, “That must happen a lot,” and subsequent experience has proved that true.  I looked over other descriptors, such as “loss of loved one” and “patient actively dying,” and thought, “These must all happen a lot.”  Also true, I now know.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”  Søren Kierkegaard

Ten years ago I retired from a career in consulting and started my blog Midlife Sabbatical with the tag line “Listening for what comes next …”  What came next was a master’s program at the Earlham School of Religion (a Quaker seminary), and I started a second blog, Midlife Seminary, to cover spiritual topics.  After a circuitous journey, life today balances hospital chaplaincy, consulting related to providing health care to marginalized populations, and grandparenting.  Life feels extraordinarily rich, and I feel very blessed.

This is my past decade, understood backwards.  Lived forwards, the Cliff Notes version went like this: 

Quit consulting career in exhaustion.  Get melanoma, get treated.  Start seminary with a vague notion of where it might lead.  Savor classes and life, gradually sensing a calling to chaplaincy.  Put seminary on hold to work for a Medicaid managed care nonprofit.  Leave nonprofit in frustration, stumble into part-time consulting with another nonprofit.  Resume seminary, plunge into a chaplaincy internship with no idea what I am doing.  Become a grandfather, then a caregiver after a post-partum health crisis.  Barely finish internship and seminary as COVID locks down the world.  Resume part-time consulting, begin a second internship, find deep reward in both.  Get prostate cancer, get treated, support spouse through major surgery 25 days after my own.  Crawl together into long-deferred vacation, re-emerge into life as we know it today.  And, yes, that life feels very blessed, too.

As we move through life, we devote increasing amounts of time to understanding backwards—trying to craft a meaningful narrative out of what we have been through.  This is necessary, important work.  But we still have to live life forwards, and it never stops being confusing and unpredictable.  

Chaplaincy has become my learning lab for both of these tasks.  Hospital chaplaincy involves engaging people who are dealing with the limitations of living inside a human body, often facing existential crisis in one form or another. We bear witness to their lives as they seek to make meaning of how they have come to this place, and as they try to decide how to proceed forward.  My engagement with patients is providing me with valuable lessons as I try to do this same work for myself. 

I am launching this blog, Elder Chaplain, to share my experiences and learnings from chaplaincy—and from aging.  Ten years ago I was 57, and even then “midlife” was an aspirational descriptor.  To use that term now, at 67, would simply be denial.  Midlife is over.  More importantly, I don’t want to be in denial about this fascinating stage in life, I want to embrace elder-ness in all its messy glory. 

In many times and places, “elder” has been a status one aspired to, rather than shunned.  Per Wikipedia, “in indigenous North American cultures, Elders are repositories of cultural and philosophical knowledge within their tribal communities, as well as transmitters of this storehouse of information.”  The term is not accidental—one cannot become an elder without also being older, without having lived through many years and experiences, without acquiring more than a few scars.  I’m not sure I yet deserve this honorific, but I feel ready to aspire to it.

“Chaplain,” too, feels aspirational.  Chaplaincy, at its core, is simply offering compassionate presence and active listening to those in suffering.  It is also the most humbling work I have ever done.  One never masters it—each encounter brings unexpected challenges and opportunities for growth.  Chaplaincy has brought me into intimate contact with people whose walk in life has little in common with my own, and has transformed how I engage with people in every part of my life.  “Chaplain” may start out as a job but it quickly becomes an identity, even if it takes years to feel worthy of claiming it for oneself.

I find that these two identities—elder and chaplain—play off each other in remarkable ways.  I inhabit a body that signals its mortality with increasing frequency; my own aging process helps me grow the compassion I need to be present to my patients, and enables me to be a more capable listener.  My patients’ stories, their fears, and their courage put my own challenges in perspective, transforming my experiences of loss into opportunities for gratitude, and helping equip me for my own journey ahead.

Why this blog?  My immersion into chaplaincy has prompted strong reactions from many friends and acquaintances.  Some ask for stories, then say, “You should write about this!”  Others launch, without prompting, into their own stories of hospitalizations or end-of-life experiences of loved ones, often parents.  I am amazed, though hardly surprised, at the hunger many feel for these conversations.  I have that hunger, too—a hunger to share my stories and, especially, to hear those of others.

My intended audience includes anyone seeking to balance hope and acceptance as they encounter loss and mortality—whether with parents, families, friends, or themselves.  I hope to engage anyone who is yearning to hear and share stories that might illuminate the path toward our own mortality.  I want to do so in a way that doesn’t sugar-coat the pain of loss—some of what life deals us is simply devastating.  At the same time, even when it feels impossible, I believe that somewhere there is a light shining in the darkness, and I want to reveal that light whenever it can be found.  If this resonates for you, I welcome your participation in this journey, and I invite your stories as well. 

In living life forward, we are always stumbling in the dark, shuffling our feet tentatively as we look for the next secure step.  The only way I have made it through life thus far is through holding hands with others and shuffling forward together.  Mortality is always messy and difficult, but since it can’t be avoided, I hope to do it in good company.  Please join me!