death

Do You Believe in Magic?

~ jjebbia ~ Leave a comment

You’re a wizard Harry!

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Photo by Tim Trad on Unsplash

One of my friends asked me this question a few days ago. Like the academics we are, I needed to clarify. What kind of magic are we talking about? The kind at Hogwarts? The kind we channel through elements and spells and crystals? In a very general sense? After some back and forth, we decided the kind of magic about which we were inquiring had to do with possibility and perhaps even the belief in something impossible. I’ve always felt like life itself, the concept of humans breathing and interacting for even a moment is kind of magic, if you think about the endless complexities of the body and the Earth. Isn’t it a miracle that we keep existing?

My sister started her surgical residency at Huntington Memorial Hospital two weeks ago. She started on the night shift, meaning she goes to work at 7 pm and comes home at 7 am, simply exhausted from a night of traumas and consults. I can’t say I envy her, but we are in awe of her perseverance and courage. Every morning, my family listens to the cases she handled the night before. Several of the nights involved patients dying. The stories are certainly heartbreaking, and with the utmost respect and reverence for the deceased, I find it unbelievable how a person makes a particular decision that leads to the very instant in which their life ends. The 31-year old man who jumped into a shallow pool head first, broke his spine in two places, and was deemed “incompatible with life.” The woman who began walking down the street in the middle of the night and received a gunshot wound to the upper abdomen- the bullet ricocheted off her back and came back through the same vein in another spot. The motorcyclist who tried to pass between two cars going 90 miles an hour on the freeway, only to make contact with a driver side mirror, fly off the bike, and shatter each spine bone, neck and skull. Let me be clear- I refuse to judge any of these decisions as better or worse than the thousands we all make every day. Blame and judgement prohibits further reflection on the topic and impedes our human connection to compassion.

Death does not feel magical to me, it feels scary, uncertain, and deeply sad. If there is a place where magic exists, I have to imagine it is in the moments in which we make a decision and escape non-existence for one more day. For one more moment, even. I remember a time when an outdoor art fair caught my attention from across the street, and not letting go of the distraction, I took two steps into the crosswalk without waiting for the light. I heard a screech and un-instinctively stepped back just as a massive Ford Explorer blew by, just barely missing my body. This was one of those “if I hadn’t taken that teeny step back, my life would have ended” moments. Of course I feel deep gratitude that my life has continued. Magic is the explanation for the “teeny step”, for all the teeny steps we are given each day. I guess I do believe in magic.

Eulogy for a Son

~ jjebbia ~ 1 Comment

To say someone was “a good man” inevitably reduces them in their humanity. We hear this so often in times of grieving the death of a loved one. “He was a good man,” we say to the spouses, children, siblings. That’s a conclusion, a nice thing to say, and a phrase that means next to nothing.

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PC: Cristian Newman

This weekend I walked among the grieving. I nervously scrolled through Instagram in the ICU waiting room. Several huge families chattered loudly around me, telling stories and laughing. Remember when…Their presence soothed me. Indeed it is in times of great anxiety and subsequent loss when we bend the rules of life and duty to come together. I sat in a plastic chair in the hospital room with two longtime friends, carefully watching them as they gave their life updates (one, working at the Museum of Modern Art in Los Angeles, the other sharing progress on his girlfriend’s first storefront bakery). As they shared and listened, their eyes twitched frequently to the bed, looking for signs of change, movement, anything. I waited while my partner showered, letting the steaming water run down his face for the slightest relief, just in that moment. And I reminded him to breathe, in, out, every few minutes.

Today we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. A few of my friends on social media remind us that when Dr. King died, he was not deemed a national hero, he was in fact an enemy of the state. Mugshots. Questions surrounding his doctoral dissertation (did he plagiarize?), his fidelity (affairs?) and even tactics to make change and rise to fame have previously made me uncomfortable. How dare we challenge the greatness of a man whom today we consider one of the most important figures in United States and global history? And yet, how dare we not. How dare we write off Dr. King as a great man with a dream who never made mistakes or misjudged a moral compass. “He was a great man” stops us from recognizing how deeply complicated a human being he was, how deeply complicated we all are. Further, how complicated our relationships are.

In grieving we tend toward the absolute. It is soothing to feel appropriate sadness upon clutching the memories that highlight “the good.” Memories of laughter, of kindness, of pride the deceased felt at our accomplishments. Yet below these scenes rests the complexities of the person that truly defined their humanity, and that now defines our own. These past three days, I listened to many joyous memories of a person who by every means is honored and will continue to be so through the lives he touched. Alone with my partner, I listened to his discomfort about the rising memories that weren’t so joyous. He remembered feeling confusion, anger, even resentment. It was not easy to admit these feelings that still ruminate within, as if he were committing a crime by naming them.

Dr. King was a father, among so many other roles. His youngest daughter Bernice King was only five years old when her father was assassinated. I can’t comment on what kind of father Dr. King was, but I can wonder if he found fatherhood to be one of the most complicated journeys of his life. And I can wonder if his children feel the same about the life of their father- one worthy of timeless honor and full of complexity. When we embrace that discomfort, we truly honor a person, for we honor ourselves as flawed and yet capable. We are not just “great” people, we are all miracles because of the fact that we are people.

I witnessed so much Revolutionary Love this weekend- not without tears and tension. Metta for the grieving, and for those who have and will continue to show up.

When Death Becomes Air, or Some Thoughts on Doctors and Dying

~ jjebbia ~ Leave a comment

I am not a doctor by any means. A few weeks ago, my sister Mallory sent me a paper she had written about an interesting patient case and I spent more time trying to pronounce the diagnosis, symptoms, and medicines than actually editing. I do, however, run quite often and have developed a habit of listening to books on Audible while running. When you’re sick of listening to the same pump-up music for weeks on end, reading while running is a good alternative.

The last book I finished is the best-selling When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. It’s a memoir of sorts about a budding brain surgeon who is diagnosed with lung cancer. The book begins with the diagnosis and how Kalanithi’s relationship with his wife is affected. Later in the book, he admits that having cancer may have saved his marriage. Kalanithi and his wife Lucy decide to have a child even though they know his time is limited. Kalanithi left the book incomplete- he began writing it the year he died, and as his wife notes in the epilogue, the book is a testament to the life he left incomplete.

Earlier this year I wrote a post after reading Being Mortal by Atul Gawande, a text that argues we, doctors and patients, do not prepare adequately for “the end.” Aging, Gawande says, is a somewhat new phenomenon, and one with which we in the United States and perhaps elsewhere have not learned to develop a relationship until it is too late. I remember while reading Being Mortal that there is a deep connection doctors and chaplains have, even though our day to day job descriptions look wildly different. We both are placed in charge of holding someone’s life in our hands. Overwhelmingly, it is not an individual’s life, but their family and friends, the people that mean something in their lives. We perform our work with a strong commitment to journeying with the patients and people we encounter when they trust us. The best of us worry about our patients and our care-seekers long after we’ve left work for the day.

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PC: Pablo Garcia Saldana

 

My sister Mallory is about to begin her fourth year in medical school. This weekend, she flew from Philadelphia to Los Angeles (home) and today will drive up to Fresno, California to begin yet another rotation. She has moved her living space at least three times in the past year and begun a new rotation in a new hospital every six weeks. When Kalanithi describes his medical student days- excruciatingly long hours, candy bars for lunch, dropping on the floor from exhaustion upon returning home after his wife had gone to sleep- I found myself nodding while jogging along the river. “Sounds like Mallory,” I thought to myself. I wondered how in the world medical students do it. But they do, and they transform lives every day.

Not every day, doctors are reminded that doctors also fall ill. My mom texted me on Friday. “That surgeon that Mallory really admires has 15 months.” “That surgeon” is a legend. My mom tasked me with “send her some words of I don’t know what.” I certainly didn’t know what. Chaplain rules: 1) don’t evade a painful subject. 2) Practice empathy 3) Ask what they need (and mean it!).

“Mom told me about the surgeon at Drexel. Sorry to hear about him, that’s awful. Do you need anything?” I sucked in a breath.

“No thanks, it’s definitely a bummer. All the residents are crying and my other attending is a mess. Just a reminder that we are all human and that life is short,” she sent back.

Such prophetic words from a medical student! I wiped away a few tears. She was right. As a chaplain and a sister, I wished my care in that moment could be more than a “you’re right” reply.

Doctors and especially brain surgeons often live under the stereotype that they are mathematical, cold, even unhuman. They see the body as a puzzle to put back together or a circuit with a loose wire. In hearing the stories from Mallory, sometimes this seems true. But also true is the care surgeons hold for their patients, the deep affect that success or failure has on them because the lives they hold in their hands matter. When doctors themselves fall ill, when they are diagnosed with terminal cancer, they too must make decisions with the people they love. I find solace in Mallory’s early recognition of this, mourning the deep sorrow she feels for her mentor’s life cut short. Inevitably, she will be reminded of this too often as a brain surgeon. But with hope, I know she will do her best to do what I strive as a chaplain: to hold her patients close to her heart and do her best to serve them.