Elizabeth
​​​​Associate Member

Share an example of when spiritual care made a meaningful impact

I was called to set up a smudging ceremony for a patient in the maternity ward. Having experienced a still birth a year before, she was nervous about her cesarian delivery. She was glad to see a familiar face as we connected again. As she and her partner were debating the aspects of smudging, assuming that they would have to carry out the ceremony unaided and by themselves, I assured them that their only task was to connect with each other, their baby and the Creator. As a thin line of smoke came up, it remained steady during the smudging of the room where each direction was cleansed and made holy, and only with the last word spoken did the smoke die out. They hugged each other, allowed a few tears to fall feeling supported, cared for and at peace. For them, the ceremony incorporated comfort from the whole hospital and an acknowledgement of their need for spiritual support to strengthen their physical, mental and emotional well-being. They were ready now to deliver their child.
Chaplain Elizabeth
Oak Valley Health
Calls to the emergency are never easy. Coming into the room, I stood with the mother who was sitting next to her young son. Tears flowing, her mind was racing to make sense of what happened. How does a seven-year-old die? The father was pacing with an energy and determination that he knew was useless. Their other two sons were dazed with shock and could barely hold themselves to stand. Staff members too, as human as the family, felt the weight of the loss. How could God let a joyful, healthy, loving boy die? There are no answers to questions when life doesn’t make sense. I could only help by showing them how to hold what happened to them. And so together, the mother recounted the joy her son brought to their family and to the world; the young brothers slowly released their numbness to hold each other’s hand, and the father, with encouragement and validation, found the strength to lead his family with prayer and solace and then to comfort and protect his sons by releasing them to the care of his own brother. Spiritual care does not come with an instruction manual. Each case presents us with the very human reality of death and life colliding at the same time where no one is left untouched.
Chaplain Elizabeth
Oak Valley Health