Sarah and her family were an intensive and extensive pastoral care situation that taxed every aspect of my ability. My initial experience with this family did not seem very positive. They all stated that they were not Christian/religious at all and were not interested in chaplain visits. However, a few days later I found Sarah's son in the waiting room weeping. He had just heard that his mother was dying and that there was no hope. After talking a while, he asked me to visit his mother again. His mother had a tracheal tube and could not make noise, but could form words. When visiting his mother this time, who was also crying, she grabbed my hand and held on. We sat there for a long time before her mouth formed the words, “I… love… Jesus… but… I… don’t… like… religion….” I affirmed the importance of this statement over her loyalty to any religion.
While limited in our ability to communicate, we spent several hours over the next week sitting together holding hands, crying, reading Scripture, and praying together. Over the next few days, Sarah was able to separate what was important to her spiritually from what was not. Her only prayer requests were answered in the days before her death (to die at home with her family around her, eat macaroni and cheese one more time, and be kissed by her little dogs again). While we prayed together for these things, behind the scenes I was able, with the help of hospice, to make these things happen. She felt them to be a miracle from God, and it was wonderful to be the instrument which God used to make miracles happen. For those that knew Sarah, she died at peace with her family, her life, and her God.
The foremost pastoral skill utilized in this setting was pastoral presence. The ability to sit for long periods of time, occasionally crying, occasionally praying, with few if any words to say, reestablished this woman’s connection to her spiritual roots. While I never learned what those roots were, my presence represented them to her. Further, my being non-judgmental to her previous attitude towards God and her previous disconnection from God, provided the grace needed to embrace the same God she once spurned. A final, valuable pastoral skill in this situation was my confidence that during this time God’s Spirit was working. Sarah and I could not really communicate, and her family was unwilling (while tolerant of their wife’s/mother’s change of heart, they remained unwilling throughout this experience) to discuss her/their spiritual journey. Therefore I determined early on in this experience that God’s Spirit would have to work; I did not know what to say or what to do. Interestingly enough, while in most cases listening is paramount, in this case listening played a very small role.
