054 - Speaking words to the team in a NICU.
Welcome back (or welcome)!
I’m committed to giving you tools and stories to be helpful. And this time it’s a story with words I found for a hard time.
A few weeks back, our chaplain team had the opportunity to offer support to our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) coworkers.
NICU is where people move right after they are born if they are tiny or early or have bodies that won’t breathe without support or hearts that won’t beat without help. The nurses that work in those spaces are tender and tenacious. And human.
Sometimes, in spite of all they do, everything stops.
That’s when chaplains usually interact with them, as we are completing the paperwork that will follow the body. As we all are supporting the family, there’s not much time to support the team.
I was grateful to be part of a time to pause.
Here’s what I told them.
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Thank you. For being in this sacred space, for being the care-givers in this assisted living residence.
The people in these rooms have lived their whole lives so far, here, in this space.
We’ve all lived in a few places, some of us many places. But in each of these rooms, this has been home for their whole life. Except for a little bit down in Family Birthing. But that barely counts.
This is where the love is.
This is where their relationships develop.
This is where they are safe.
And for a few people in the last month, this was the only home they ever knew.
You are among those who abandon comfort for compassion, who abandon confidence and predictability for courage and risk.
For those of us who work in life and death settings, some things run through our hearts on hard days.
We want to know that our work matters.
We want to know that our work is seen by those who matter to us.
We want to know that our grief matters, too.
As chaplains, we are privileged to see and feel that your work matters. And that your grief matters, too. You are seen. By us, by each other, by God.
Your grief is real.
This is hard.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Life is often measured in years. Success is measured by filling those years with quality.
This sacred space is no different.
You do everything possible to breathe life into babies, to fill their moments and their hearts and yours, with hope. It’s why we bless your hands each year.
For some little ones recently, it turns out that life was measured in days not years. Two months, 13 days. Five months. 7 weeks.
You did everything you could think of. It doesn’t seem like it was enough.
Yet the length of life is not in our hands. The care you gave was enough to sustain the amount of life they were given. You filled their hours and days with quality.
As you recorded vitals, you were writing their only official biography, capturing the only work they ever did.
As you gave report, you were creating their oral history, telling each other stories of what to watch for, about the tiny successes.
You together are the ones, along with moms, who know everything that can be known about these people.
You bear witness to their existence by bearing withness. Their lives and stories exist because of you.
And often, outside this space, no one knows. Or so it feels.
However, Jesus tells this story of a king who says, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.’
It doesn’t feel like all we wish. But you did, faithfully, all you could do.
And now two blessings. One for the babies.
The Lord bless them and keep them, the Lord make his face to shine upon them and be gracious to them, the Lord lift up his face upon them and give them peace. Amen.
And one for you.
The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his face upon you and give you peace. Amen.
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Over at Finding Words in Hard Times - the podcast, I offer some ideas for people working on life after a difficult diagnosis. It’s not comprehensive, but it’s a starting point.
105 - A working list for life after a difficult diagnosis