Hospital Chaplain

When I was a hospital chaplain, I had an uncomfortable familiarity with death. I say uncomfortable because I was 35 years old and far from that significant threshold for myself. I say familiarity because I officiated at more than 60 funerals during those years and I sat by the bedside of many people who were about to die. I responded to the nurses who called every time an infant died. I don’t think any of us ever get comfortable with that. I sat at the bedside of many people who were facing their own deaths. Some of them talked about everything but death. However I distinctly remember some, who on the doorstep to eternity, could speak openly about what they thought and how they felt.

Take for example Rosemary, who was in the hospital for many weeks. She was battling cancer and always appreciated a visit from the chaplain. In my first visit at her bedside she said to me ‘I’m going to die soon.’ As matter-of-factly as if she had said I’m going to have my hair done tomorrow. I admired that kind of confidence, and I spent some time every day for three weeks with her. Rosemary had an easy laugh and liked telling funny stories. She had some worries about how her family would react to her death. But she herself wasn’t worried. I admired her tremendously and tried to carry her confidence with me.

I spent some time visiting the woman with emphysema. This was in the days when a patient could still smoke in the hospital. So wouldn’t you know it -there she was smoking a cigarette. The skin on her face was dry and leathery; she could only speak a few words before coughing. She said to me, “thank you for dropping by Rev. ‘cough cough’ no need for you to stay ‘cough cough’ I’m way past redemption ‘cough cough’.”

A 60-year-old woman was brought into the emergency room bleeding from her femoral artery as the result of an auto accident. She was able to instruct her doctors that she didn’t want any blood transfusions. She was a Jehovah's Witness, and her religion prohibited the use of blood products. This drove the hospital staff crazy. In their eyes it would have been so easy to save this woman’s life. But to refuse blood products seemed to them like sure suicide. I explained to her doctors that she had the right to refuse medical procedures, even when her rationale didn’t make sense to them. They kept her alive longer using a hyperbaric chamber and oxygenating what blood she had left. Eventually she died. Her family was relieved knowing that without blood transfusions she could go straight to heaven. Her doctors were flummoxed.

Throughout those years I considered my parishioners to be the hospital staff. Nurses who were on their feet all day and all night; respiratory therapists who went from lung to lung extending the breath of life where they could; social workers and discharge planners trying to find adequate arrangements for the discharge of very sick people. They were a dedicated and hard-working group, and I was privileged to be held in their loving embrace.

Osso Bucco

Tom made Osso Bucco for dinner a couple of weeks ago. Italian for a ‘bone with a hole’, this recipe calls for a slice of veal shank that gets simmered in broth and rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, clove and vegetables for 60 to 90 minutes. When it is served the Osso Bucco is falling-off-the-bone tender and delicious. The other advantage of this recipe is that when the meal is complete, a beautiful bone is left for the dog. We finished the meal in 40 minutes. Flash has worked on the bone for days. Tom and I sit and watch him try to chew on the inside of the circle. It provides hours of entertainment for all three of us. I know what you’re thinking: “these two are easily entertained.” Yes, we are.

There is something “old world” about this recipe. It takes time to cook, it makes the whole house smell delicious and you can’t eat it while standing over the sink. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the modern day shortcuts in the kitchen. Without them I’d weigh 80 pounds. But there is also a benefit from the

old recipes. Isn’t there? Am I just being sentimental? At one point in my past, when I had two legs to stand on, I made apple pies from scratch. Piecrust is a tricky endeavor, but when done well it’s a delight.

Flash just showed up to remind me that this piece is not about recipes, it’s about bones. The kind your dog will love.

Band Uniform

I did all four years of my secondary education at Coachella Valley High School, where the mascot was the C.V. Arab. Therefore our band uniforms were appropriate to the Arab culture. I'm not sure it was a uniform that any authentic Arab would recognize; they were more like your Hollywood version of an Arab. The uniform began at the top with a dark green felt fez. In Arabic it's known as a tarboosh. With a tassel attached to the top and hanging down the side, picture Matt Groening’s Akbar and Jeff. (That's probably why I turned out gay-- I was made to dress like Akbar and Jeff during my formative years.) Our shirts were made of gold satin with full sleeves and over that we wore a green felt vest. We wore green wool pants that were gathered in at the ankle. Picture Barbara Eden in I dream of Jeannie. The gold satin cummerbund helped tie the outfit together. My feet were big enough that the toes curled up of their own accord without any help from the costume designer.

The real miracle here was that they dressed three dozen of us in these costumes and put us on a hot street in the Coachella Valley carrying drums and tubas… and most of us survived. I suppose that all of this was good preparation for my years in the theater. I could say to the director in any given play ‘you want me to wear that?’ Sure, no problem.

Brokenhearted

I fell in love in my mid-30s and I fell hard. His name was Jay. We met quite by accident and ended up talking most of the evening. He was from out of town and living in my area because IBM sent him there to close down a local facility. The circumstances of his work assignment should have been a warning to me, but you know what they say-love is blind and a little bit stupid. He stayed over that night and for several nights thereafter. Over the next few weeks, we went for long drives and sang in the car. He cooked for me and bought me flowers.

I took him to my grandmother’s funeral where he met all the family. He interacted with my little niece and nephew with grace and charm. He talked with my parents in a way that put his higher education at Cornell to good use. We were both working more than full time, but we spent nearly every night together; he almost never went to the little apartment he had rented nearby. He flew to his home in the Bay Area and rented a truck to bring some of his things back down south. He brought his bed, which he said was more comfortable than mine so we put my mattress in the garage. He brought his big rocking chair, and we settled in to my place like a couple of honeymooners.

One morning I woke up and found him sitting quietly in the rocking chair. I kissed the top of his head and asked ‘is something wrong?’ He said no. That night when I got home his belongings were gone. My mattress was back on the bed. His clothes, rocking chair, brush and comb all gone. I called him at his old apartment and he said he just needed some air. I didn’t understand, I peppered him with questions. Air? Was I smothering you? He said he didn’t know; he just needed some time.

If you want to drive someone crazy don’t give him the complete story. Just give him enigmatic explanations like ‘I need some air’. Well, it drove me a little crazy. I started driving 20 minutes to his apartment at 10 PM at night and sitting in the parking lot trying to watch people coming and going. I knew what grief and depression could do to a person, my life became a prime example. I became sleepless and restless. I cried at unexpected times. I was brokenhearted.

After a month he told me the truth. He had left his lover in the Bay area and eventually came to doubt his decision. I was still a wreck. Over the next few months, through long talks with my friends and my therapist and a lot of rigorous exercise, I made a slow, deliberate climb back into mental health.

This is a dark story in my life that I have resisted retelling. But with time comes perspective. Six months after my fiasco with Jay, I learned that my friend Tom had become single again. I called him and made a date for lunch. As it turned out my heart had been broken… I like to think of it as broken open, to be ready for the love of my life.

My First Home (with a little help from my friends)

In the early 1980s I ventured to purchase my first home. It was a two-bedroom condo under construction. Set up into a hillside, it had a lovely view of the Conejo Valley and the builders promised it would be completed by June. But by the Fourth of July it was still nothing more than 2x4’s. I would go by every couple of weeks and supervise, but that didn’t seem to speed the process at all. After Thanksgiving I learned that construction had stopped because of a lawsuit. Evidently my two-story unit had emerged into the view shed of the homes on the hill behind me. It seemed that my lovely view of the Conejo Valley used to be theirs. In any event I left the builders and the homeowners to sort out this issue without me.

Come spring, the construction started again. And about 11 months after I opened escrow my lovely condo was almost ready for me. The sales office informed me that they would need $5000 in closing costs before I could move in. I said to them “And you are telling me about the closing costs now, after 11 months?” I had never purchased a home before; I was a real estate virgin. So these closing costs came as something of a surprise. I was as likely to come up with $5000, as I was to produce a Polaroid picture of the baby Jesus in the manger. I was very upset to think that a year of hoping and waiting would produce nothing but disappointment.

When I shared my distress with some of my friends at work, they said, “let us help”. So I borrowed $1000 each from five of my colleagues. They were so good about it, I told them I could pay them back with $35 a month. They smiled and said, “Take your time”.

Two years later I sold the condo for a nifty profit. (Oh the beauty of Southern California real estate in the good times.) I was able to pay off my colleagues, and put a down payment with Tom on our new home in Ventura. These friends and colleagues have a special place of honor in my memory. I hope you each have known such friendship in your life too.

Seventh-grade Friends

Beginning seventh-grade made me more than a little nervous. It was in seventh grade that young people in our community first changed clothes for P.E. and showered afterward. In retrospect I was making a mountain out of a molehill, or was it vice versa? As with many young people that age I was insecure about my naked self. I had an ectomorphic frame (tall and skinny) and I had no idea how my personal physical dimensions measured up to my peers. Once we all got in the changing room I undressed so quickly and avoided looking at others I was still pretty ill informed.

The changing room was not the only place I should have been worried about. I had experienced a growth spurt that made it difficult for me to place one large foot in front of the other without tripping. Expecting me to run and throw a ball simultaneously was beyond optimistic.

In 7^th grade, we also began moving to different rooms for different classes. So in the course of a single day we changed classrooms, changed teachers, changed clothes. It was a lot of change for a young person. Fortunately I moved to the seventh grade with a band of friends, loyal stalwarts. When I think back I realize I made a lot of difficult transitions, and good friends had eased the way. We expect a lot of our friends and my friends have come through, overlooking my weaknesses and walking shoulder to shoulder through the transitions.

The Dream

I had a dream one night while I was in high school. In the dream, my dear friend died in a motorcycle accident. I woke up in the morning and I was still crying. My pillow was soaked with tears. The dream was so real I sat in bed that morning trying to figure out if he was really dead or not. It wasn’t until I was at school later in the day and I saw him in the flesh that I could relax and let go of the dream.

The dream made me painfully conscious that I was in love with him. He was a fabulous young man, intelligent and athletic and funny. But he liked girls. I had listened to him for hours while he mooned over girls in our class. I could never tell him the true nature of my affection. So I loved him in silence, and dreamed my tragedy in private.

As I reflected on this private, personal memory, I thought about all the high school students today who are secretly in love with someone of the same gender. One of the most important tasks of adolescence is learning to fall in love. And yet for gay and lesbian youth, there are very few safe places to talk about it. Should they go to a teacher or parent? And what if at 16 years of age, this young person gets rejected, ridiculed or kicked out of their home? Could any of us have survived that?

There’s been a lot of media attention to bullying in high school. I believe it is time for parents and teachers to do the hard work of creating safe places for coming out. That means teachers and administrators saying publicly ‘our gay and lesbian students have a right to fair and kind treatment by everyone’. What a world of difference that would have made for me and the tender sprigs of love that I was learning to nurture.