Written as one reflection among many upon hospice and palliative care chaplaincy.
Leaving work, I stop to take a photo of roses in the evening
sun.
It is mid-October, yet the hospital gardens are still
blooming, and I am amazed.
I bend closer, frame the shot, focus, shoot: only once.
On the bus ride home, I can’t stop looking at the photo of
the roses,
perfection in a single lucky shot.
Their petals, full of light, are a microcosm of the hospital,
each organic fold a room I entered today.
The brightest is V---’s, the sun streaming in, and he is
beaming up at me,
glad to be recovering from chemo in full-bodied light.
The sun slants across the other side of the bloom and I am
with A---’s wife,
now nearing the end of the second week of her vigil
and napping at his bedside as the sun touches the blinds.
Shade lends a blue tinge to the lowest petals and I am
holding C---’s hand gently,
my other arm around his daughter in the ICU, full of cool daylight;
this man who taught me how to glow with gratitude now dying
as we pray together, grappling with our farewells.
Oh, roses, roses, when the sun touches you, you are lit from
within,
even in this fragile season.
Does this radiant work not do the same to me?
Is there awe in my face, and an inner glow,
light reflected and absorbed?
