The Nurse, The Patient and The Tree of Life

 

Since I was a young child I have always been very

intuitive. I have been both lucky and cursed with

knowledge of things outside of my own personal

family and world.

 

Why is it necessary for me to know that the lady in the grocery

line is sad because her husband has lost his job? What can I do about

this? Yet all the same I know. And then she talks about it with the store

clerk as if to let me know that sanity has not taken its leave from me.

Life always posed the problem of where I end and they (the rest of the

human race) begin. This I guess is why helping people who are sick

seemed natural as a choice for work after high school. What I did not

realize is that it would be an avenue for both professional and spiritual

growth combined. I would grow both inward and outward as I touch

those who were placed in my care.

Death was real to me but not personal when I started in my profession. I

thought I was fully trained and capable to understand the dynamics of the

event from all prospective……….I was wrong. I soon learned that we

communicate in many different ways and that in death the communication

is clear and ongoing for all those that can listen. I was privileged to

listen.

I was nervous. I knew it would be a matter of time for me, after all I was

working in a famous teaching hospital in a intensive care unit. The

stage for my blessings and lessons was set. And then she came. She

was a mother, wife and career woman. She had many around her who

loved her. They came to the bedside often during her fight to offer words

of hope and encouragement. She was a fighter. But to me, her spirit

spoke of different plans all together.

She was tired she said to me one day. I was startled. I was alone in the

room, worrying about a dropping blood pressure in the presence of many

supportive interventions. My mind was weary and perhaps playing

tricks. And then……again I heard it. ‘I am tired.”

I walked over to the bed and straightened her tubes and IV tubing. I

flipped her pillow and wiped her face. There I thought, all better. And

then as I turned to go back to my chart. I heard, “ You are a smart girl

but you do not listen well.” I spun around and looked at her. She was

peaceful in what appeared to be a quiet sleep. The sounds of all the

machines and monitoring equipment was all I heard on the outside of my

mind. But inside…

I touched her forehead and spoke to her. I told her it would be okay.

And in my mind I could hear her answer. “Sure I know it will be okay

because I am going to die today.” I was shocked and frightened. I had

never had any die in my care. My attitude was that this was not

acceptable. I could feel fear and anger boiling up inside me.

Look here I told her in a low whisper, “You will not die in my care! I

cannot have that!” Her thoughts came through….” Like you have control

of that.” Well for me the fight was on. For the next hour, I could not

think fast enough to keep up with the stream emotions, memories, images

and words given to me by my patient. She showed me small clips of a

wonderful life……..her children when they were little, her wedding day

and when she herself was a small girl. It was wonderful and priceless the

gift of sharing that she brought to me that day. Since which I have never

been the same.

The experience left me disoriented and a bit shaken so I went to lunch and

had another nurse watch my patient. I told her that she was trying to die

but that we could keep her, at least until the end of our shift. I went to

the cafeteria and experience re-entry into what appeared to be a normal

mundane world. I came back and she was still there hanging on but now

with her daughters and husband at bedside. I did not expect them so

early.

The daughters said they felt they were called to come in early to visit.

They told me about her life, much of which, I had already been shown.

They told me about her struggle with her illness and her desire to die with

dignity when the end came. They told me she had said she was ready

long before this day and that her family members were the one needing to

prepare.

I am a professional. I told them that everything was currently stable and

going according to the doctor’s plan. And then I heard it. My patient

was speaking to me again, now in front of her own family but only I could

hear. She told me it was time…..

I answered her…….”Oh no, not now!” The patient’s family said “What is

not now dear?” Not realizing that I had spoken aloud, I told them “Its

nothing.” And at that instance, the transition began.

I started loosing blood pressure and her heart rate slowed down to the

30/min. Alarms were sounding as I ran from IV pump to pump adjusting

medication to reverse the changes that were happening. I went to my

medication draw and prepared to administer Atropine to treat the slow

heart rate as I called out for code team type assistance. The doctors

and my coworkers all rushed in as I heard my patient say….”Calm down,

it’s all okay……’

We coded her for an hour and a half. I broke her ribs doing CPR. I

second guessed everything I had done that shift and all the shifts before.

My lady died that day at about 1:30pm. My lady talked to me from above

the whole time of the code. She was worried that we took so long that

her daughters suffered on pin and needles for an outcome that was

decided before the process was even started. She worried about me

because she knew my heart and soul felt broken. She told me she would

stay with us a while.

I cleaned her up, removed the tubes and wires. I combed her hair and

sprayed her with a body spray her daughters told me she loved. I knew

she was close but I could not hear her. I pulled the curtain open and

faced her daughters and husband. Tears ran down my face and her

eldest daughter took me in her arms and gave me hug. She held me as I

cried and I apologized for the intrusion of my own emotions. She told me

not to be sorry. She told me that her mother adored me and told them

many times about how well I cared for her.

I was shocked. I left them to their time with their mother….wife……..my

patient. I sat down at the desk and hide my face in shame of my own

emotional display from my coworkers.

After about an hour, the eldest daughter of my patient came out of the

room and over to me at the desk. She asked me to come in the room for

a minute. I was scared. What had I done wrong? I got up and walked

into the room past the curtain. Inside her husband and daughters faced

me with tearful smiles. They thanked me for being their mother’s nurse

and each gave me a hug. The eldest daughter approached me with

something in her hand that was hard to recognize through the tears I

fought back.

It was a tree. A tree of copper leaves and branches on a wooden base.

I had seen it early on and had asked my patient what it was when she was

well enough to talk. She told me it was the Tree of Life. She told me that I

would understand one day the importance of the tree of life and its

symbolism to both flesh and spirit. She told me I was already on the path.

I never knew what that meant and thought that it was part of the Jewish

tradition of faith. I knew she looked at it often.

The daughter said to me, ‘Mother told me early on to give this to you”

She said you will not know what it means now but that later it will mean a

great deal to the path you are on. Again, like a big old baby, I was crying.

They hugged me again and left me standing there with my little copper

tree.

Many years later, my quest for understanding took me to information

about the Kabblah and the Tree of Life. My path has taken down the road

of study of all areas of metaphysics and theology. I have actively sought

to understand the path we are on in flesh and its connection to the spirit.

On that day, when I was oh so young, my patient saw in me that which I

had yet to see in myself.

 

 

semicomiller@me.com.