From the new day...

During the cold wet spring of this year, when outside activities were limited by, seemingly, constant days of precipitation and unseasonably cool weather, I thought ahead to summer and saw it filled with ripe potential to be the sweetest season yet. When it arrived however, I had a variety of social engagements like graduation and good bye parties and showers and weddings which happily filled the weekends, but also limited time for outdoor pursuits. Bike rides and hikes were in short supply. Time to enjoy the figurative fruit of the season was limited. This evening however, it all came together like orchestral magic.

On a bike ride through some of the most scenic areas of Chester County, I felt I had become a character in an amazing story book. As each gravelly page was turned, I encountered new treasures that delighted the senses. The self-created, perfect breeze travelled with me like the shadow of the wind. The seasonal scent of cut grass and fragrant greenery became intoxicating as can only happen in the humid air of summer. Horses, heron, deer and bunnies all presented themselves playfully to me as though inviting me to follow them into the secret corners of their outdoor world. My bike flew effortlessly along, like those carrying the riders on the final day of the tour de france on the Champs-Elysees. And the sounds of the birds and the creeks, soothed and soared, like Mozart’s Canzonetta Sull’aria.  I didn’t want this story to end.

But the sun was setting on this operatic stage and darkness soon would make biking unsafe. One of the final roads I must take is like a dark tunnel when dusk nears. The trees overhead and all around come together, joining limbed forces to block any remaining day light. Through this tunnel, I pedaled hard and fast, at times feeling like I was riding to escape the monster coming up behind. And then finally, before me, the light and safety of home loomed, leaving the monster to fade into the darkness. The tunnel ended and the pinkish orange sky framed the dusky green fields where golden bales of hay were gathered and left to sit, like scattered players on a huge game board. It was a comforting, pastoral sight that brought peace to the journey’s end. While the journey ended for tonight, the story of the sweet season of summer will continue to be experienced and cherished, like a child’s favorite bedtime story that never grows old.

From the new day...




I was assigned a new hospice patient today. It was someone I knew for a period of time in years past. He has had a very challenged life with losing both of his parents while he was young, being placed in foster care, suffering physical and sexual abuse at the hands of many of his foster parents, and living a life that was affected throughout by all these losses and abuses. Despite his difficult life, he has held on to hope, to kindness and to gentleness. He is a great example of resilience. Not that he hasn't added to his problems with addictive behaviors and bad choices but he is able to get past all of these and still look forward and still be kind. Now he is 59 and in declining health with a terminal diagnosis of end stage COPD. He is tethered to his oxygen, and spends most of his day in a chair as even a short walk to the bathroom causes him to get out of breath. From his confinement in a rural trailer near the Pennsylvania and Maryland border, what purpose might he still have? Why did our paths cross again? Those answers I may never know fully but my familiar appearance allowed him to tell his complete story, from the beginning to nearing the end. He was determined to lay it all out on the table even though pauses were needed to catch his breath. His whole life in a nutshell - the good, the bad and the ugly. He talked about how hard it is to really know someone - to know their truth. And how we shouldn't judge.  I wondered if these were lessons learned or instructions passively given to  me.
Before I completed this post, my patient died. He was on service less than a week. I know there was a reason for us to reconnect, however, I may never really know why, but I am grateful for the chance to have seen him again and to be privileged to hearing his unique life story.