With four active children, over the years I've spent a lot of time in hospital emergency rooms, not to mention I served as a chaplain at a level 1 trauma hospital one summer--a great place to see boots on the ground ministry....
I remember one night in particular. It was a Sunday evening probably a little after 7 or 8--still light outside. A car pulled up to the ambulance dock and I saw two people struggling to help a young male walk from the car to the door. He was crying and clearly intoxicated. As they were struggling an EMT approached the couple and started trying to help. "Good," I thought, "Someone to help." But...
He grabbed the young man and was a little rougher than I expected him to be. Then he starts talking (and I could hear because he wasn't being confidentially quiet), "What's his problem? Boy you better get moving or we're going to throw you down. We're going to have to jam a tube down your throat. What kind of mess have you gotten yourself in? What did you think was fun to take today?" I was stunned. Now I understand, this man had probably been working all day; I understand he has probably seen and dealt with more drunks and addicts than I ever want to; he's probably fed up. But I saw the woman's eyes.
This wasn't just another drunk or addict. This was her son, her baby and she was scared. Maybe she's been dealing with this for years or maybe (and I learned this to be true) this was the first time she was walking through these doors with this problem, but she was bringing her son in for help--help she couldn't give him. The days of bandaids and a kiss on the boo boo were long gone.
I suspect she felt powerless--totally helpless; I suspect she wanted to scream at the man, "Stop treating my son like that. He's my little boy. This isn't who he really is. He's a good boy, and I love him. Every word you say is piercing my heart and soul. You don't know him. He's not a bum; he made a mistake; he's a little boy, my little boy." but as I saw her eyes well up with tears and saw her stroking her son's back I knew she wouldn't say anything because this man now had the power, and she wouldn't do anything to make his treatment worse. She knew her power was gone and to remain silent was the best choice to receive the care he needed.
(Sometimes you do have to scream--when my son was in a hospital in North Georgia for stitches and the doctor was threatening to restrain him in a not so kind way, I may have become the two headed mommy monster and I may have made a few threats including throwing out my maiden name...it worked--perhaps another blog--)
They approached the clerk who looked up, looked at the woman, looked at the young man and said, "We're going to take care of him. I need some information. Can you help me? Can you answer some questions?" The mother's eyes spilled tears as she began stammering and trying to find information from her wallet all the while clutching her son's hand. "I don't know what he's taken; it happened so fast. I thought he was okay." she said. She had to let go of her son's hand in order to open her wallet, and as she extricated her hand from his he began grabbing for her and crying harder repeating over and over, "Mommy don't leave me. Please don't leave me. I'm so sorry; I'm so scared." Her tears flowed, and I saw her hands shaking--wanting to hold onto him and knowing she had to let go.
It was hard to see--cut straight to my heart. I thought about my own children and how long it had been since they called me Mommy. I remembered how sad I was when they made the switch from "Mommy" to "Mama." I remembered my own son clinging to me as I dropped him off at preschool and how hard that was, and I thought, this has got to be way harder. It made me wonder why I even went through that everyday during preschool. Why didn't I just keep him home with me?
As I was thinking about my own children as toddlers I imagine this woman might have been as well. I suspect this woman suddenly saw her young adult son as the little boy she had reared. I thought about how she was having to let go of his hand to help him and thought, I bet when he was a little boy and she wanted to hold his hand crossing the street or whatever he would try to let go, but she knew she had to hold onto him to protect him. But now, now to help him she was the one who had to let go. It broke my heart as I saw the pain in her eyes.
I guess it broke the clerk's heart too. "M'am, I can promise you we are going to help him. Let me explain exactly what the process is going to be." About this time the father joined the group; he placed his hand on his son's shoulder so gently as though he would break him if he pressed too hard. I got it. He just needed to touch him, to know he was still there--to know he was safe--to connect.
The clerk turned to the young man and gently said, "You're going to be okay. We're going to help you." She kept talking to the parents softly and with compassion. And then I heard this, "Here's what is going to happen. We have to take him back to a holding area, and you aren't going to be able to stay with him." Panic crossed their faces and so she quickly continued, "I'm going to let the nurse know about him; I'm going to let you go back with him and see if they can find you a private room, but there are probably going to be a few minutes you won't be with him. I promise you we are going to take care of him. We need to do a tox screen to check his liver....." and she continued talking so kindly as they wheeled the young man away.
I think about those two hospital employees a lot. I have no idea if either of them are people of faith, but I can tell you that woman was a minister to those people. That woman treated those people with dignity and respect and compassion and grace. That woman made a difference; I noticed; I wish I'd told her...
Ministry--boots on the ground--it matters.
Disclaimer: While I put these people's words into quotation marks, I really don't know if they were the exact words.
2 comments:
Tears flowing...again...
Powerful message
Post a Comment