Our Shared World -- Fear and Hope

We find ourselves, again, at the intersection of fear and hope. The horrific violence in Paris on November 13 played out in real time through news coverage and social media shook us to our core, as many could identify with random sense of violence while going about one's day to day life. Human nature is to protect our families and our tribes, but who are our families and tribes in this day and age of global connection? 

Only two months ago, "we" rose up in horror at the sight of Aylan Kurdi, the three year old Syrian boy whose body washed up on the Turkish beach, as his refugee family was trying to escape the horrors of a war torn country. We are now confronted with many political voices refusing to offer sanctuary to families such as Aylan Kurdi's due to the violent assault on Paris we witnessed last week. But by viewing the world as "us" and "them" aren't we also losing a bit of humanity by separating ourselves from the image of Aylan and replacing it with an image of a terrorist. 

I don't know what the answer is, but I hope that as we each struggle with finding resilience in this horrific event we don't lose sight of the hope that exists by being blinded with fear. We live in a shared world, one in which I choose to give more energy to hope versus fear. It is with this intent that I share with you the poetry of Naomi Shihab Nye, Gate A-4

Marmool Cookies

Gate A-4

After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
please come to the gate immediately.

Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.

Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
problem? We told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
did this.
I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,Sho bit se-wee?

The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—
she stopped crying.

She thought our flight had been canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,
Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.

We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
would ride next to her—Southwest.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.
Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.

Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered
sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament.

The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
the lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—
non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.

And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,
with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
this is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.
They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.

This can still happen anywhere.
Not everything is lost.

9/11: The Paradox of Horror and Hope

For some it may be hard to recall a time when "9/11" wasn't the shorthand phrase meaning "catastrophe". Before that bright, sunny, September morning fourteen years ago,  September 11 was simply a date on the calendar. In the blink of an eye it changed from ordinary to extraordinary, similar to what a previous generation may have experienced in early December 1941 when Pearl Harbor became synonymous with "war". At the time of these events our nation galvanized, we found a sense of collective empathy in our shared experience. In spite of the horror and fear we also found a sense of connection and community.

Through tragedy we found resilience. This is the magic of the human spirit. As we remember the terrible events that unfolded on that September day fourteen years ago, let's also remember the incredible goodness and hope that emerged and transformed us:  strangers helping strangers, kindness given without expectation, sharing of resources, a sense of hope and community. How will you honor the date that transformed us -- with horror or hope? There is no denying the horror of 9/11 but can we also honor the hope that unfolded?  Will you join me in sharing some hope and goodness on September 11?

Here are 5 simple ways to share hope on September 11:

1. Feed someone's parking meter

2. Buy coffee for the person behind you in line

3. Hold the door for someone

4. Text a <3 a="" friend="" nbsp="" to="">

5. Smile at a stranger

What will you do to share hope today?

Pam

"I Don't Do Death"

"I don't do death" a physician once told me. The culture of modern medicine asks us to embrace the promise that cure is always possible and death is a failure of the health care system or the inadequate skill of a physician or nurse. It is my hope that together we can change our current culture of medicine by expanding our expectation that our students, residents and fellows are trained with the same rigor in high touch medicine as they are in high tech medicine -- so all healthcare professionals "do death" AND "do life" with compassion and skill. It has been a year since I wrote the following essay for Cognoscenti (WBUR) . Today, I again returned to the Massachusetts General Hospital for the 2014 Pediatric Memorial Service, so please indulge me in this redux. I welcome your thoughts and comments. ~ Pam

Each year, early in October, a letter arrives with the return address of Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit St, Boston, Mass. I know immediately what the envelope contains and I pause and reflect for a few moments before I open it. Inside is an invitation to return to the place where my son, Nick, was treated for a deadly form of cancer when he was 14. We, as a family, also spent many days, weeks, months in this place: crying and laughing; watching fireworks magically unfurl in the dark sky over the Esplanade from windows on the 18th floor of the Ellison Building; waiting in the subterranean operating room holding areas in the warrens beneath the hospital; exploring the empty hallways late at night like the actors in “A Night at the Museum”; holding impromptu guitar jams in Nick’s hospital room; and ringing in the new year with noisemakers, shrimp cocktail and sparkling cider with hospital staff who drew the short straw and had to work on New Year’s Eve.

 

Perhaps learning to step into the full spectrum of life and death is the meaning that the children who didn’t survive bring to the practice of medicine.

Nick died 12 years ago, so why do I still return to this place each year? It is because Nick, like the other children who were cared for in this huge, often anonymous institution are not forgotten — they are remembered and honored year after year with the annual Pediatric Memorial Service. In this medical mecca, children are not supposed to die. We are fortunate to have some of the best and brightest medical institutions in the world at our doorstep. Reports of miraculous new cures abound in the media, but there are some children who are not the success stories that are highlighted in hospitals’ marketing materials.

They are the children who didn’t survive. Those of us who receive an invitation to return to MGH each year for the Pediatric Memorial Service are a disparate group. Some of our children died when they were adolescents, some when they were in early childhood. Some died from a chronic illness, some from an acute infection or disease, and others suddenly by an accident. We come from different walks of life and professions. We speak different languages. Yet, on this day, year after year, alongside the staff who cared for our children, the barriers are lifted and we are all together as human beings, remembering the stories, sharing a hug, speaking our children’s names, and trying to find meaning in loss. Collectively, we understand the unique grief of losing a child.

Early in my professional career as a nurse, I heard a young physician say, “I don’t do death.” I’m not sure what this statement really meant — perhaps that somehow his superior knowledge could forestall death permanently? — but beyond its arrogance, it spoke of fear and hopelessness. As a society we are very isolated from pediatric death. We are fortunate that in the span of a few short decades we have seen a dramatic decrease in childhood deaths due to vaccines, antibiotics, and advances in medical treatments.
But this decrease has created a void in our health care professionals’ ability to know how to deliver care when finding a cure is no longer an option. Our medical and nurse training programs don’t “do death” well either, especially around societal taboos.

A physician at this year’s memorial service gave me hope for the future when she commented that her role as a doctor is to walk the journey with her patients and families and this includes the full spectrum of life and death. We look to our healers to cure us with the modern arsenal of medicine at their disposal, but when a happy ending is no longer possible, shouldn’t it also be their role to help guide us through the fear of the unknown and unthinkable, especially in pediatrics? Perhaps learning to step into the full spectrum of life and death is the meaning that the children who didn’t survive bring to the practice of medicine. Our kids have become the teachers, no matter how short their lives may have been. Their legacy is to continue to teach the healers how to walk alongside those who are confronting the unimaginable and unbearable with grace, humility and humanity.

So, I guess I keep coming back to walk through the doors of the Massachusetts General Hospital year after year to remember, share a story, and to say thank you for honoring these great teachers who keep medicine honest, healing and humble — the kids who didn’t survive.

http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2013/11/05/pediatric-death-pamela-katz-ressler

Remembering September 11: Reflections on Hope, Renewal, and Resilience

The Well of Grief

Those who will not slip beneath 

the still surface of the well of grief

turning downward through its black water

to the place we cannot breathe

will never know the source from which we drink,

the secret water, cold and clear, nor find in the darkness glimmering

the small round coins
thrown away by those who wished for something else.

~By David Whyte from Close to Home

 

Do you remember when September 11 was just another day on the calendar? "September 11", or simply "9-11", has become a universally recognized phrase meaning a moment when, collectively, our lives in the United States changed forever. As the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001 approaches, we are reminded of the cataclysmic events of that day, and the utter astonishment and disbelief that something like this could happen to "us".  While this was a collective moment, each of us individually will have our own private, personal "9-11's" in our lives.  Perhaps our personal 9-11's will come as a dreaded diagnosis, a late night phone call, an accident, a devastating natural disaster, an unspeakable hurt or loss. There will be no journalists covering our 9-11's, no awards for heroism, nor museums built, but that doesn't make our personal 9-11's any less devastating or life-altering. While we cannot prepare for what our personal 9-11's will look like, we can find ways to build resiliency; first by acknowledging the grief and loss that occurs when our life is knocked off its axis and then by diving deep to find ways to cope, make meaning, find purpose, and renewed hope in our "new normal".  I have been touched by reading some of the stories of resiliency this week, stories of those who have used these past ten years to rebuild lives in ways that look very different than the lives planned and imagined prior to September 11, 2001. This is the work of renewal, resiliency, and hope; to find something glimmering in the darkness, as David Whyte suggests in "The Well of Grief".  We cannot control the outcome of an event, a 9-11 in our lives, but we can control the experience by creating a renewed sense of purpose, meaning and hope in our lives as we adapt to our new normal.