I have spent the last twelve weeks as a summer intern chaplain at a level one trauma hospital. If you need an update for how I might have got to this place, you can catch-up here from my past Substack posts. It has been both an unexpected and beautiful plot twist in my life to walk through the doors of Tampa General Hospital. Over the course of the twelve weeks, there have been many questions posed to me by patients, family, and staff. Like, “Do you believe in miracles?” “Will I go to heaven?” “Will they be okay?” “Can you tell me what happens next?”
I have learned that every question in response to grief is a valid one.
You see, the body sends an SOS signal to the brain in a desperate search for a solution to fill the void of loss or an anticipated loss. This void of loss is where grief is birthed from. And to every question I was asked, my heart initially wanted to give them a cliche answer to make them feel better in the moment. I wanted to throw them any sort of lifeline that let them know that everything was going to be okay.
But who am I to impose my fear of the void onto them?
Before beginning my internship, my natural disposition in life in response to another’s grief, has been to be a fixer. As fixers, we naturally want to fill the void that another person is standing in. I used to often wish that I could pour ocean water into the void of another’s sorrows. And keep pouring until they can float on their backs and arrive safely back on dry land.
But you see,
It is not my job as the chaplain to fix someone’s pain or give answers in response to someone else's grief.
I have learned this summer that it is my job as the chaplain to crawl down into the void at the bottom of the dry sea floor to meet another person right where they are at. As a chaplain, I am a guide that connects others to answers of their own understanding in order to help them make sense in their own way of their experience in their own time. I now know that we all have a unique path out of the void of grief. And while others can help us by illuminating the path forward to walk, we must be ready and willing to crawl back out of the void ourselves.
This summer I heard more than once, “I can’t believe this is real, it feels like I’m in a movie” and I responded to them, “It is understandable how you’re in shock right now.” And they look at me with child-like doe eyes like “how did you know?”
I have learned over the last twelve weeks the most important thing you can do in response to someone else's grief is just be with them and provide them the ministry of your presence.
So, what exactly is a chaplain?
In the words of my mentor JS Park (a hospital chaplain, published author, dad of two, Korean American, ex-atheist, husband of one, and beautiful overall human, I could never describe in just one sentence but who I will definitely be sharing more about in a future Substack post) “chaplains are grief catchers”. A chaplain holds a field of presence from their heart space whether a chaotic storm of winds blow anger, or soft tears silently fall to the ground with sadness. We stand in the emotion with patients, families, and staff. Even in the category of “chaplains” the uniqueness transcends theological and religious camps of thought. Sure, there are “Christian chaplains” and “Buddhist chaplains” and “Hindu chaplains” etc. etc. there are even atheist chaplains. Personally, I left the hospital this summer with a clear identity as a spiritually independent humanist chaplain.
While it is important for us as chaplains to have our own foundation of purpose to stand on. Chaplain training this summer transcended independent religious theological belief systems. This process has prepared me and other chaplains from all backgrounds to provide interfaith ministry to all people who walk through the hospital doors.
If chaplains are grief catchers, then what exactly is grief?
The book ‘All Our Losses, All Our Griefs’ describe grief as a normal but bewildering cluster of ordinary human emotions arising in response to a significant loss, intensified, and complicated by the relationship to the person or object lost (by Mitchell and Anderson). Oftentimes the human emotions associated with grief can be guilt, shame, loneliness, anger, terror, bewilderness, emptiness, profound sadness, despair, and hopelessness.
We often associate grief with loss of life. But grief can arise in losing something in many scenarios outside of just death. Humanity right now is deep in the trenches of societal collective grief in response to systematic loss. Our hearts hurt during times of war and injustice of divisive times keeping us all separate from our own oneness of humanity. There are material losses of objects we hold dear to us. Like saying goodbye to your childhood bedroom or losing your favorite necklace or your favorite pair of blue jeans finally splitting. There is functional loss. I have met with patients this summer who have had amputations and lost physical parts of themselves and will learn how to navigate their world in a new body and let go of the dreams they planned before their injury or illness. There are lost dreams and grief that rises from the “what might have been” visions stored in hearts. There is role and identity loss when jobs and hobbies because of sickness or injury alter life as one once knew it. And of course there is relationship loss. And the permanent marking left on our hearts when a loved one makes their final transition. No matter the loss, grief will be birthed from the void of it.
I foresee my Substack moving forward highlighting and bringing light to different forms of loss where grief is birthed from. You may have noticed I changed my Substack publication name to “In Awe of Grief” that I feel perfectly captures my role as a poet in combination with me now-role as a chaplain. While grief does not feel beautiful, maybe there is something beautiful about being a human who experiences grief and the spectrum of human emotions. I feel like that is my job as the poet to make meaning of the breaking, it has been my only way through to stand in grief with others this summer. I have had to believe there must be something to be seen as beautiful when what fills the room is sorrow, despair, and heartbreaks.
For many years I used to shame myself for crying, being sad, feeling lonely or depressed. And through my journey, in the reclamation of my humanity, I know now that grief responses are normal. I feel like I have unlocked the gift to give that perspective and permission to others. In the words of Rachel Lampa, “You are perfectly human” and because of that “you are perfectly loved.”
For the next year of my life, I have accepted as a Chaplain Resident at Tampa General Hospital, and I desperately want to tell you, the stories of the people I see every day. But I can’t. It will be my first priority to be conscious of protecting the patients I see, their confidentiality, and the unique details of stories. This will be hard for me as a storyteller to keep inside my own heart. But these stories are sacred. Your story is sacred. As a chaplain, I am trusted to hold that sacred space and accept it with much honor.
So, for now, my Substack will be the broad strokes of what the lessons and themes I am learning from my chaplaincy. These will be lessons that I learn from patients, my therapist, and my fellow chaplains. And most importantly, the lessons I am learning from and about myself in journeying alongside others in some of the saddest moments of their lives. Maybe one day, I can aspire to be more like JS Park and collect enough stories in my chaplain pocket to conflate them, but right now I am just at the beginning of my journey.
Thank you for being here to learn more about yourself and the awe and beauty of grief.
xoxo
Jen