One of the biggest frustrations working in hospice is the caregiver who will not listen to your advice. They have not yet come to terms with the situation. It is heartbreaking to watch someone pass away and to have all the tools to help them, only to get pushed aside or shut down by someone who just isn’t ready to get on board with the program. There comes a time when all you can do is watch someone suffer. It is gut wrenching. All your pleading and teaching will not change the situation. You can have long talks, leave reading material, educate till your heart is content; but there is no moving or budging their resistance. They refuse medicine saying it will kill their loved one. They force food down a body that can no longer use it, causing greater problems, often for their own selfish reason of making themselves feel better. Even though you, as a hospice nurse, may have gone through hundreds of deaths and end of life scenarios, the expertise and knowledge you have gained is greatly ignored. You know that you could truly ease the suffering before you, but you can only stand by helplessly as the patient struggles to breathe and takes those deep, labored “guppy breaths”, or chokes on soup, being forced down their throat. Somewhere deep within a voice screams “Why won’t you listen to me”?

As my coworker sat down today and unloaded this same frustration, I thought a minute about our Father in heaven. He possesses the tools to make us better. Not just to give comfort at the end of life, but to truly live life abundantly, with His spirit present. He knows what we need, he tries to reach out and tell us. He has left us with plenty of good reading material, and He has the experience and knowledge to share.

After all He came and walked as one of us.

Yet we ignore him. We try to shovel the food of this world’s sin into our body, even as our spirit screams “stop”. It’s dying and can not handle any more. We ignore his excellent advice and continue in our own stubborn ways. He has the medicine to make us comfortable, to allow us to breathe freely, and yet we turn away, continuing to labor. We think we know better. We are afraid to trust; to trust one who does know better. And so we too endure needless suffering.

I wonder if in heaven the Angels have ever heard the cry, maybe coming from a far away corner, but none the less as loud as thunder…..”Why won’t you listen to me”?

Growing up there was nothing my dad could not fix. A mechanical engineer by trade, I watched this man use his hands to create, to dig, to measure, to cut, twist, glue and most importantly provide the security to his family that if something ever fell apart, he would be there to put it back together. Dad came through more times then I can count. His garage full of tools and the big long workbench where he used his hands to carefully put our lives back together was a whole other universe to me. Dad was great with his hands. He still is. I spent many moments in life feeling so indebted to him, knowing that he had done something for me I just didn’t have the skills to do myself. I would have been so lost without him. Even though I’m now over 40, just this week he fixed my faucet that haid been rattling for months. Another mystery solved by the man with the “fix it” hands. Another debt I cannot pay.

You see I fell far from the “fix it” tree. I have never been able to figure out how things go together. What came as second nature to him has been a huge life mystery to me. When a toy or bike or piece of furniture fell out of the box with its many parts, screws, and instructions, I wanted to run the other way. Thankfully dad was there to put it together. I always wished I had his talent. There were times I really wanted to make him proud by pulling off some great feat of engineering genius by fixing something broken before he got home from work; but that never happened. It just got referred to him.

A few weeks ago dad got real sick. He had a large abscess on his neck that required a major surgery. He left the hospital with a good size wound that needed and still needs dressing changes daily. For these past few weeks I have helped him. What an honor to take care of the man who has always taken care of me, even in this small way. Being a hospice nurse, and having dealt with many wounds, a simple dressing change is not a big deal. As he sits in front of me with his head turned slightly down I cleanse his wound and pack it and tape it up. Today I noticed my hands as I tried to delicately scrub without hurting him. They look like his in shape and size. They look old. Somewhere, somehow, they changed from little boy hands, carrying a broken toy to dad to fix, to adult hands. They are still clumsy with a screwdriver but they are good at taking care of him. And others. I was keenly aware today of the different talents the good Lord gives each one of us and how that really makes us need each other.

I was also happy, not that dad had a wound that needed tending to, but that I finally got to help, in just a very small way, the man that has always taken care of me.

With my hands.