Samatha Trenoweth’s first interview as a journalist was in 1985 with a woman, born in Switzerland whose life’s work in the United States as a physician had already revolutionized the care of patients. After that interview, the journalist wrote in her book, The Future of God, “I am convinced that I have met a truly extraordinary woman, the sort who cannot leave the world unchanged with her brand of down home wisdom.”
For me, this woman personifies the messages from today’s readings about our gifts and the guidance we receive from the Spirit of the Divine. In addition to wisdom I think she also had the gifts of understanding, prophecy, counsel, fortitude, knowledge and healing. There were many time Dr. Elisabeth Kubler -Ross said she was ready to quit, but it wasn’t until years later she realized that even when she was at the end of her rope that something small, but always something significant, helped her make it through that day and onto another.
The biggest help she got was from a black cleaning lady that she credits for saving her whole life’s work. She said, “Every time I walked into a room when she had been there something was different with my patient. I couldn’t pinpoint it. One day I saw the woman and said, ‘What in the world are you doing to my patients?’ The cleaning lady replied that the only thing was cleaning the floors. Later on she grabbed Dr. Ross and took her in a broom closet and told her that when she grew up her family never had enough food and no medicine. When she herself had children one after the other died.
The last one she took to the emergency room and they refused to treat her three year old because she didn’t pay the bill from the last visit. She carried this very sick child across the city to the county hospital and sat in their waiting room for three hours and watched him die of pneumonia. “You see doctor,” the cleaning lady said, “death is not an enemy to me any more. It’s like a familiar friend. When I walk into the rooms of those dying patients and they look so scared, I can’t help but walk over to them, touch them and without words just let them know it’s not so terrible.”
After that encounter Dr. Ross hired her as her assistant and said, “It’s people like this who are our teachers.” Her work with dying people gradually led her into research about life after death. She realized the need for the spiritual element even though she herself did not particularly have these inclinations. At this time in the 1960’s there was no book on death experiences; there wasn't even a word for out-of-body experiences. If they happened no one talked about it. Clergy hesitated to speak to the dying about their immanent death. Ross asked the help of a local clergyman and at their first meeting she said to him. “You stand behind your pulpit and say, ”Ask and it will be given to you,” but you don’t believe a word of it, do you? "I am going to ask God right in front of you to please help me do research about life after death so I can help my patients.”
Five days later one of her dying patients, Mrs. Swartz, had a near death experience and said, “This restored my faith that there is a God who hears us and who we can talk to and if we make a request with the right motivation, and really need what we ask for, we will get it. Eleven months after Mrs. Swartz died Dr. Ross saw her standing in the hallway waiting to see her. She could not accept the reality of what was happening but remembered touching her hand to see if it was warm. When they got to her office the woman said, “I had to come back to thank you and the Reverend for what you had done for me. You cannot give up your work now. It has just begun." (Now this was the day that Kubler-Ross was going to give a notice of termination to the University Hospital. She gave the dead woman a piece of paper and a pen and said, “The Reverend no longer works here. Would you mind sending him a little message?” When she left, Ross turned over the paper on which Mrs. Swartz had written that she was at home and at peace. Ross did not quit and a few weeks later was asked to write a book, (now a classic) on Death and Dying.
In her later years her dream to open a hospice center for abandoned AIDS infants was thwarted because, in addition to the fierce opposition, her life was threatened. Instead she began giving workshops for adults with AIDS. “We need to heal people so we can heal the planet. If we become less destructive with ourselves we will be less destructive with the earth.” She told about an AIDS patient she had in one of the workshops and the things he shared about his life. He was from North Carolina and grew up in a strict family who were fundamentalist. To them AIDS is a punishment from God. He told how he knew a very young age that he was homosexual. He tried not to be and dated girls but he could not live as a heterosexual. His family called together the religious community to pray over him and the experience was so humiliating that he swore that he would never return home.
After living in San Francisco he was diagnosed with AIDS and was in an AIDS ward where 300 of his buddies spent their last days. He knew he was going to be next. When you are close to death there are two things that will go through your head. You think about all the windstorms of life and you review the special moments, the memories of the times when you experienced unconditional love. As he went through those memories, he couldn’t believe that all of them had something to do with his Mom and Dad. He knew he just couldn’t die without telling his parents, despite the ugly stuff, about those moments he remembered. So after all of the years of not speaking to them, he phoned home. He told his mother he was in a hospital in San Francisco dying of cancer and he needed to come home to say good-bye. Then he described going home to North Carolina and by this time, everyone in the workshop was sobbing. He told us how he walked across the meadow towards his old log home. Nothing had changed, it was like time had stood still. His mom saw him coming and dropped everything and started walking towards him. As he was stumbling toward her his Dad caught up to his mother. But as they were really close, he became afraid and thought, “Oh my God, when they see my face, will they stop and turn their back to me.”
But as he stumbled they did not stop and now in their arms he had forgotten all the humiliation and all he felt was this incredible love. His mother whispered in his ear. “Son we know you have AIDS and its OK with us.” “Do you know what that meant for this family? What did that story do for my other AIDS patients? What a giftthat mom and dad gave to all the other AIDS patients.
If that family was able, at the end, to love without strings or hooks attached, then the hope was there for my patients too. Maybe they would find one human being who would be brave enough to love and accept them at the end... With every decision that faces us we can ask ourselves if we are making a choice from a basis of love or fear. Always choose love, she insists, and you can’t go wrong.”
I agree with this amazing woman that our struggles help us to grow in love, wisdom, understanding and compassion. Hopefully when we depart earth, we will have left it a little bit better than before we entered it.