A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #48 Asking why?
I’m a very secular human being. I don’t do synagogue or church unless my presence is required to celebrate a christening, confirmation, bar/bat mitzvah, marriage, or funeral. I don’t have routine conversations with God.
Words I’ve spoken in church are usually restricted to reading along from psalms with the occasional Amen thrown in for good measure. I’m tone-mute and rhythmically challenged so singing- and clapping-along is pretty much out of the question lest I throw the entire congregation into disarray.
It is true that while resuscitating the victim of a cardiac arrest in St Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, I once told a priest preparing to give last rites ‘He’s not yours yet‘ however I’m not particular proud of that memory. I share it here simply because those who know me would provide that story as an example of my unwillingness to surrender a patient to death.
All to say that it was unusual for me to sit down with a person of faith to discuss the question, ‘Why?’ Why this person, these circumstances, why now, why here, why?
We had rolled on a call for a high-impact road traffic crash involving a single vehicle striking several trees. The driver was bloodied. The front seat area was destroyed. The intrusion of a tree trunk into the driver’s immediate area was catastrophic. It was a prolonged complicated extrication. Somehow the backseat of the car was untouched. The shards of razorsharp metal and a million pieces of exploding safety glass flew forwards and backwards and missed the kids who were still belted into their car seats. The driver survived.
The children were miraculously unscathed. They looked like they had slept through the entire horrendous crash. They were both dead. The impossible forces of impact had conspired against their bodies and provided invisible unsurvivable internal trauma.
I was stunned by the inexplicable injustice of it all. I engaged in my usual post-traumatic-therapy. I made mixed tapes. I wrote letters to myself. And still I came back to the ‘Why?’ question. Feeling as if I needed a fresh perspective, I went to see the pastor at the Huber Memorial United Church on the Alameda in Baltimore. We knew each other because Sylvia Hamlin had insisted I become involved in helping young members of the congregation stay on the right path in school.
I confided in him that sometimes I found the whole ‘Why’ question overwhelming. Why did this patient live? Why did this patient die?
He listened, paused, and then spoke carefully.
“I know you’re not a particularly religious man, Hal however I’ve always thought of you as being deeply spiritual. There are no easy answers to the ‘Why?’ questions. Some people believe it is the hand of God that determines who lives and who dies and whether or not the people trying desperately to save their lives will succeed or fail.
“I believe the good work you do is evidence you have moved beyond asking ‘Why?’ to ‘How can I help?’ I expect you – and we will always wonder about Why? Have faith in yourself that you are making a real difference out there. Sometimes, as Sylvia, will tell you, “God will bring about great wonders through your good works.”
“And sometimes, despite your best efforts, your patient will die. Death is a part of the cycle of life. Accept this as something that just is and not as a personal defeat.
“Remember this passage always – Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.”
Of course, that was a long time ago and my embrace of resurrection medicine has loosened considerably in favour of a kinder, gentler approach incorporating mind and body – and some would say, soul. I’ve learned to acknowledge differing views, “I’ll put my care in the hands of the Lord and that’s who will be guiding you in the back of the ambulance.”
And heeding the pastor’s advice I stopped asking ‘Why?’ and moved on to ‘How can I help?’ although, truth be shared, I will always wonder about why.
Be well. Practice big medicine.
Hal
NB: Big Medicine is my nod of respect to a First Nations expression that, roughly translated, means the right people working together at the right time will be Big Medicine. I’ve been saying ‘Be well. Practice big medicine’ for as long as I can remember. It is my own very personal version of ‘Sawu Bona’, the Zulu greeting which means ‘I see you’… I see all of you, I see your good works, I see the difference you are making in the world.
