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50. Funerals, Part Two

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

A whole book of funeral related material could be written by any parish pastor who served (survived?) for more than forty years. Been there. Saw that. So, I’m writing the book. 

A shout out to the diggers, the people who actually do the burying. Most are employed by the local cemetery association. I’ve only come across one who does all the digging by hand, pick and shovel carving a seven by three foot hole, six feet deep. The little, tightly arranged plots in West Walworth made it impossible to get a backhoe in most location. Bless Norm’s soul.

Another shout out to the vault people, usually dressed in coveralls waiting at their truck parked nearly out of sight while family and friends gather. Once the hole is ready, they remove the concrete box from their flatbed, using a small crane. A small remote controlled tracked machine delivers the vault to the grave. They assemble a steel frame with rollers and belts above the grave. The vault is slid into place, connected to belts and lowered into the hole. The cover is set aside. Vault people set up the tent, lay boards around the hole, roll fake grace over everything, set up chairs. Hopefully, the weather is accommodating, though, not always. 

Clergy precede the casket into the sanctuary, and out when the funeral is concluded. We ride in the undertaker’s limo that precedes the hearse, leading the processional from funeral parlor or church to the graveyard. 

Shout out to the motorcycle escorts, in fair weather and foul, icy blizzards, pouring rain, and hot sunshine, who zoom ahead to block intersections, ensuring a smooth processional of cars, headlights on, to the cemetery. They are a sturdy bunch. 

The undertaker at the cemetery gives necessary paperwork and checks to the association attendant, wrangles pallbearers and removes the casket from the coach. Clergy lead the procession of pallbearers to the grave. If the corpse is heavy, I’ve seen many straining, gripping, hoping not to fall pallbearers deliver the casket to the straps held by the frame above the grave. Flower arrangements are placed around the casket by the undertaker and their helpers. The family follow, closest relatives given front row seats, everyone else standing in silent tribute to the deceased. 

The undertaker gives me a nod, indicating all have assembled. I step forward, open the prayer book, and begin. At most internments, as it’s known in the business, I wear my Alb and stole directly from the service. If it is really cold, I’ll put on a coat under my liturgical garb. Internments are short; no need to prolong the agony of grief. Just a few prayers, words of assurance, and a benediction. 

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. 

It has been my practice to stand quietly by the side while loved ones place flowers on the casket and say their final goodbyes. When all have left for their cars, the vault people begin their move. 

The casket is lowered into the vault, belts slid clear. The cover is lowered over the top, tongue and groove with an epoxy seal, nearly impossible to open ever again. The frame, tent, fake grass, and chairs are removed, and the digger begins to shovel in the earth. Rarely do family witness these final acts of mercy, but occasionally some do. 

I waited at my father’s grave, and my mother’s. 

—

Laps today were meditative and restful.

“Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God: have mercy on me, a sinner.” Words synchronized with movement gives me serenity and peace. It removes the obligation of exercise to keep my mortal, aging body as healthy as I can be. 

Less rust, like the tin man left in the forest, leave me frozen and stiff. 

A good swim is better than oil.

—

I’ve seen a lot of things buried with a corpse over the years, some intentional, others, not so much. Some are symbols of insider information that only the donor and deceased would share. Some are funny, others are tear jerking sad. 

I buried a bullfrog once. It jumped into the open vault before the casket was lowered. Ironic, but the family had spared no expense and purchased the most expensive model on the lot, with a highly polished stainless steel liner. The frog croaked his tune during the internment. After the family left and the digger and vault people gathered, it was obvious no one was going to volunteer to remove the casket, get in the hole, and rescue the frog. The casket went down, the lid was sealed, and so was the fate of the bullfrog for all eternity. 

I buried more than one beer in my time. A lot of six-packs, pints, and fifths have also been slid into the coffin before it was sealed and locked. A corpse is forever, a beer is only good for twelve ounces, not that any corpse could take advantage of the gift. Bottles and cans have also been left in the cemetery, beside or upon the grave and stone. Usually the undertaker removes them discreetly after the family has left, less neighborhood kids descend. Sometimes it takes death to lead a person to sobriety, an eternal life that is happy, joyous, and free. 

I buried a beautiful mahogany coffin once, with a deep gouge left in it top. The rain and mud caused the hearse and procession to slide down the hill. Everything at the grave was slippery. When the vault people assembled after the family departed, one had his grip slip when he was removing the iron frame. It fell and deeply scared the casket. Being a distant cemetery, unfamiliar workers, and a long drive home ahead of us, the undertaker looked at me, bowed and shook his head. “If these were my guys back home, I’d make them take it out and pay for a new casket.” They weren’t. He didn’t. None were the wiser.

I buried a corpse once tilted on a slope. It had been a multi-day downpour and the ground was swollen with water. As the digger dug, water seeped into the hole. Thinking the cement vault was so heavy, it would sink to the bottom, remaining upright, the vault people lowered it into the partially water filled hole. One side caved in, just before the vault was set in place, leaving it tiled at a forty-five degree list. With no quick fix available and the family driving in the gate, they hoped no one would notice. After all, everyone just wanted to get to the reception, dry, and warm. No one did. The casket slid in, the lid was sealed, eternity on his side. Literally. 

I buried a lot of mother’s tears. It’s always emotional to celebrate the funeral and internment of a child. We think parents should age and go first, but it doesn’t always go that way. One baby had died from SIDS, or so the coroner determined, his tiny casket was easily moved by two pallbearers. The other baby had died in childbirth, the pain too much for either of the parents to attend. I can’t even imagine. Few of us can. 

I’ve buried a lot of photographs, jewelry, teddy bears, and military medals. It is always a solemn moment for the family to depart, the corpse to be cranked down (think like the seat in a car being fully reclined), the lid to be closed and locked with a special key that only an undertaker can own. As a clergyman, I always considered it my duty to watch the casket closed, giving assurance to the family that no theft or funny business took place. 

I buried one person twice. His wife had use his own handgun to dislodge his brains. Before one makes judgment, the bruises left around her neck would acquit her of homicide. The illegal possession of a firearm charge would stand, and she served her due time. Justice, I suppose, in an odd sort of way. I got a call from the undertaker a few weeks after the internment, asking if I would return to the cemetery for a second burial. “Why?” I asked. “The cemetery buried him in the wrong site. So, out came the vault, sealed with coffin inside, transported fifty feet to the new grave, where I said my piece, and the digger went about his work.

I buried a fireman with his working pager. The final call, made by an accommodating 911 dispatcher was the last anyone heard from that pager, batteries obviously now depleted, before being buried next to the corpse of its faithful owner.

I buried a patient of mine, a frequent flyer from my EMS days. A COPD sufferer from emphysema as a result of a lifetime of cigarette smoking. Her intoxicated son found her deceased with a burned down cigarette between her lips, oxygen still flow from her nasal canula. She was cold and dead, blood pooling in her lower extremities. The son made his request for a funeral director from another town. The deputy sheriff didn’t want to hang around, so he left me in possession of the deceased. The undertaker arrived, a good friend of mine. I helped him remove the body, and off she went. Later that day he called and asked if I’d do the funeral. She had no church affiliation. My frequent visits as a medic on the ambulance apparently impressed her son. “Of course,” I responded, “It’s the least I can do.” She received the dignity and respect that was due.

I buried a few former medics in my time. The captain of the squad, who I greatly admired, was buried, as was his son, in the Reformed church where he was a member. Another medic who worked many calls with me was buried because he had no church affiliation. He was a loveable character, who always embarrassed us with foul body order and dirt under his nails. He always just skidded by with a minimal passing grade on his recertifications, but I loved him just the same. He was dedicated, worked hard, and we share the shit together.

I buried two young men who died of drug overdoses. On both occasions the grief was deeply felt by all who loved them. I made it a point in my eulogies to tell the congregation that addiction was a deadly disease, yet, it could be successfully treated and managed, less such grief visit their own families. “Ask for help,” I encouraged. “There are a lot of professionals who will move heaven and earth to get you the treatment you need.”

I buried a COVID victim, though the family did not want it publicized. She died of natural causes, thus avoiding stigma and blame.

I’ve buried a lot of friends and family members, each beloved, each leaving behind a painful absence of life, love, and passions. One heart felt funeral was conducted at the chapel at the United Nations. Talk about pressure.

I’ve buried numerous people, co-celebrated their mass or service with colleagues from many different denominations and traditions. When it comes to death and grief, our difference in theology and polity doesn’t matter anymore. Everyone whose life I celebrated was done so with an attitude of thanksgiving. “Thank you, God, for sharing your beloved child with us.” Every funeral celebrated received Biblical assurance of a loving God, a redeeming Savior, and the promise of eternal life.

Eternity may be on some distant shore, I don’t know the specifics. God has never revealed to me such insider information. I only know that the God of my experience will care for my eternal soul in the same way I have been cared for all my mortal days. Grace. Love. Forgiveness. Salvation. These are the eternal signature of the Divine.

—

Undertakers have an amazing talent for absorbing grief. Those who act with professionalism and grace do well. Those who do not don’t last long in the business. They are the firsthand eyewitnesses of trauma and violence, yet go to extraordinary means to ensure dignity in death. They minister to every conceivable circumstance, children and the aged, spouse and divorced, functional and dysfunctional family members, sinners and saints.

The vast majority of undertakers I’ve been privileged to work with amaze me with their professionalism, dignity, and grace. Like in any profession, there are exceptions. Mostly, they work long hours, earn small margins, cater to the most demanding families, and pay out of their own pockets when a family has no money. I’m so grateful to God for the wonderful undertakers I’ve worked with along the way. 

Clergy have no fees for parish members, though most undertakers insisted on passing though honorariums. For non-church families, the going rate was twenty bucks when I started in the early 1980’s to two-hundred fifty today. It is awkward for many to speak about fees for service, but, I’m not shy. People should be paid for their service. When I add in my professional preparation, experience, one home visit, calling hours, leading the service, conducting the internment, and sometimes saying the grace at the reception, I think I’m worth it. 

One day I will leave this world, leaving behind an aging corpse. Trusted colleagues will celebrate my death and resurrection. In seminary one project was to plan your own funeral. I have repeated this exercise throughout my life and pastoral ministry. The liturgical rubric includes the prayer to live everyday prepared to die.

This, I have tried to do.

49. Funerals for Veterans

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

In the first week at my new parish I celebrated three funerals. Nothing says “welcome” quite like sitting bedside vigil, getting to know families, learning histories, and putting in place plans for special services. Welcome to Walworth! 

The money paid to me by the families was used to purchase a new stole, one with the faces of children woven into the fabric, symbolic, I believed, of one’s mortality replaced by new birth. Families deeply appreciated this simple act of kindness. Every time I wore that stole, I was rewarded with a smile or simple nod of the head acknowledging their loved one, the circle of life, and the community of saints.

Clergy, present company included, tend to consider a funeral as burying a corpse. Of course, I’ve never turned a shovel of earth or lowered the casket into the vault. As cremations became more popular over the years, burials were completed in much smaller holes, or scattered at some place that had been meaningful to the individual and their families. 

The smooth, seamless service for a family was writ large by the experience of the pastor and the cooperation of the funeral director. I was largely blessed with wonderful funeral directors, though there were a few exceptions. Economies of scale eventually forced out single family operations in small town New York. Consolidations and professionalization forced many individual operators to cut margins razor thin. Where this impacted clergy was a $20 honorarium and curt smile instead of the expected fifty bucks, which was the going rate in the late 1990s. “Thank you,” I’d respond back, wondering if the funeral director billed the family for fifty, but only gave me twenty.

I was fast friends with Mike, an undertaker taking over his father’s business. He grew up in the business, washing the hearse and limos as a kid. As his dad aged into retirement, he expanded by buying one funeral home and building another, all three in Western Wayne County. Mike appreciated the attention I gave to every family, even those he sent my way when there was no church affiliation. It was my habit to always visit with the family. 

First, we’d talk about the deceased, their love, passion, and journey through life. Most families would leave out sordid details, which didn’t interest me anyhow. Knowing a person allowed me to better tailor the funeral and eulogy, making it much more a celebration of life than the mourning of a death. 

Secondly, we’d spend time talking about the funeral service itself. It always made sense to me to create the service, within the constraints of The United Methodist Book of Worship, to meet the specific needs of the family. After all, isn’t that the purpose? There is much freedom to incorporate scriptures and hymns that hold special meaning. 

My eulogy always focused on faith; life, death, and eternal life. It is a way to place focus on thanksgiving and praise, for a precious life given to us from Almighty God. Confidence is shared in those sacred moments, that, through life’s ups and downs, good times and periods of pain or discouragement, God is with us every moment of every day, guiding and giving strength. A funeral eulogy often gives laser focus on a living, active God at work for our common good. A good eulogy also gives assurance of God’s promises, so poignantly stated in Psalm 23 and John 14. If you haven’t read these essential passages from the Bible in a while, give them a go!

Family comments at a funeral can be a Pandora’s box of the unexpected. A few techniques learned by experience can reduce the risk of failure, but can’t eliminate risk altogether. Although I don’t make hard and fast rules, the family visit can be used to assert strongly clergy suggestions. 

First, no open mics. “Would anyone like to say a few words?” Is an invitation for some perceived victims of dysfunctional family members, so-called friends, and former business partners to vent their spleen of resentments. I recall one such incident where a former boyfriend talked about their intimacy, going on and on, making the family squirm in their seats. Another came from a drinking buddy who recounted barroom antics and brawls. Not a good look.

Secondly, encourage the family to identify who should speak. This is often received as a honor, as a gift from one grieving loved one to another. 

Thirdly, encourage the speaker to write down their speech. Words have meaning. Chose every word with purpose. Each word is a gift from God and should be used with care. A written statement also can be handed off to another, or myself, in case the speaker becomes overwhelmed with emotion, as a funeral service is apt to occur. Lastly, a written statement limits time at the mic, avoids rambling into deep diving gopher holes, and keeps the service focused on praise and thanks. 

Funerals in the Spring, Summer, and Fall usually can be followed by immediate burial in a local cemetery. Burials in the dead of Winter are at the mercy of the local cemetery association. If digging was done by hand, burials were postponed until the ground thawed, which, those of us in the business called “Spring Planting.”

Sometimes cemetery officials wouldn’t bury in the Winter even though they had a backhoe, simply because they didn’t want ruts left from attendant automobiles. In local cemeteries that conducted Spring Planting, corpses and coffins were stored in an unheated blockhouse on cemetery grounds. Each had a central drain in the floor. Go ahead, use your imagination. 

I loved working with Mike. He was polished, respectful of families, and would go out of the way to honor special requests. He knew of my EMT background, so if he was short of manpower, he would sometimes ask for help for a removal. No problem; I’d just pull my ball cap lower over my eyes and avoided being seen by the family. All for the price of a cup of coffee and swapping of war stories. 

My one church in West Walworth had a cemetery directly across the road from the church. The association was populated by church members. Most of the deceased had been church members. Veterans from every war, from the Revolution to Viet Nam, were buried there. The church bought and placed an American Flag on every Veteran’s grave. 

Each Memorial Day Sunday, we’d complete the service, children from the congregation would carry a potted geranium in solemn procession across the road and disperse to every Veteran’s grave. A youth from church would be volunteered to play taps and I’d read in slow succession every name of every Veteran buried in the cemetery. We always gathered a crowd and boosted worship attendance. The community loved it. 

It was immensely satisfying. 

Then the cemetery association ran out of money. It wasn’t due to mismanagement, it was simply the fact they didn’t charge enough to pay the digger, hand crafted by Norm, who doubled as the code enforcement officer, and the cost of perpetual care.

Lawn mowing and landscaping, often taken for granted, cost real money. Associations across the State were going out of business, passing the stewardship of graveyards over to legally mandated Towns. Problem was, it took years for Towns to get their legal affairs in order to transfer deeds and responsibility to the taxpayer. 

Spring sprung and the grass grew tall. What to do? These were our people, I justified to the church board, layering on a veneer of guilt. We do what churches through the ages have done: we do the right thing. 

I supplied the Igloos and ice. Father’s and sons brought six packs of libations. Everyone brought their own mowers and weed whackers. One church member rode his John Deere lawn tractor two miles to the cemetery to get the wide open spots.

For a small rural cemetery, it took twenty of us a good three hours to cut, trim and whip the cemetery back into shape. We’d finish and tell tall tales over a cold beverage afterwards. We even attracted non-church members from the neighborhood to lend a hand and pitch in. It was community at its best. 

We kept up that beautiful, sacred burial ground for three seasons until the Town of Walworth took it over and sent paid contractors to replace us. We were happy to have the burden of perpetual care removed from our shoulders, but felt like we were losing a shared experience of respect and love. 

Well done, good and faithful servants.

—-

Laps today felt good. I was sporting a new blue spandex suit. Together with rocking my red Crocks, I made a very patriotic entrance from the locker room to the pool.

Or, I was a clown. 

Whatever. 

The chronic fatigue in my arms and legs were wrestled and wrung from tendons and muscles. Sharing a lane the entire swim, my lane mate was accommodating and kind. I tried to reciprocate with splash less strokes, hugging the lane marker. 

Fifteen and out, standing in a hot shower, watching the swirl of water circling the drain. Life in a glideslope felt good.

Entering the final third of life, an airplane’s glideslope is an apt metaphor for retirement. Confronted with the question, “is this all there is?” Has caused me to contemplate the years before me that will eventually end in mortal finality. Will the glideslope be free of crosswinds? Unexpected wind sheer? Free from confliction with another aircraft? To my Navy brothers and sisters, will the glideslope be in the dark of night onto a pitching deck? 

—

It has been a humble privilege to celebrate hundreds of funerals in my ministry, each a celebration of life, love, and legacy. Veteran funerals often stand out. 

Some have been modest. Countless veterans have been buried with only the undertaker and myself in attendance. A lifetime of homelessness or supervised living takes its toll. Addictions and poor choices leave people isolated from family and friends. PTSD and chronic mental health conditions can be devastating. The ninety dollar Veterans Administration provided cardboard casket was the punctuation at the end of life that still brings tears to my eyes. What can be said?

Thank you, God.

That’s what can be said.

Thanks to God should be on every lip at every funeral. For the life of humble service. For service to our country. Sacrifices for our land, community, neighborhood, families, and for our way of life. Thank you for defending a Constitution and its bountiful blessings. Thank you God; this individual gave to our grateful nation the most formative years of their young life. Thank you, God.

Taps is played. Guns are fired. The spend cartridges are lovely tucked in the Tri folded stars and stripes. A crisp salute by the American Legion honor guard. The sound of crushed stones under the tires of the hearse as we drive away. 

Some veteran funerals have been grand.

I’ve had the privilege to celebrate the life of a tanker who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, an ICBM missile commander who held nuclear Armageddon in the palm of his hand, a forward air controller who called in artillery and air strikes to cover American retreats in Korea, an Air Force wrench who spent his entire life in Viet Nam replacing aircraft tires, a sergeant who helped plugged the Fulda gap at the height of the Cold War.  

Every one deserved a flyover. With the missing man formation. 

I had the privilege of filling in for a chaplain at one of local nursing homes while she was out on maternity leave. It was easy to lead Sunday afternoon worship, to make rounds with the residents, lead weekly Bible studies, and to interview new admissions. It is easy to love people who are so grateful for your presence and attention. 

We got a new admission one day, a ninety plus year old veteran who was delighted to meet me. He absolutely beamed at me, seated in his wheelchair. After introductions and filling in the religious affiliation forms, we entered the sacred space called storytelling. 

He was a Korean War veteran, flying F-86 jets, fighting MIGs coming from China and the Soviet Union. After the war, he flew fighters with the local Air Force Reserve unit based in Niagara Falls, just an hour and a half down the road from Rochester. A native of the Finger Lakes region of New York, he was retired from a prosperous engineering firm and led a comfortable life, raising family, vacationing at a lake cottage on Keuka Lake. He was recently widowed and his adult children lived elsewhere. 

“One day,” he began bringing his hands together, “I was on a training flight and had gas to burn.” He could go home, landing heavy with jet fuel, or, he could have a little fun. He told me he banked into the turn, descending to about fifty feet of altitude and commenced a high speed run, South to North, up the center of Keuka Lake. He broke the sound barrier, he confessed with a wink and smile. He beat feet  back to base and went right to the squadron phone, placing a call to his lake cottage neighbor. 

“Hey!” He said into the phone, “anything exciting happening at the lake today?” His neighbor responded with agitation, “Some yahoo Air Force pilot just sonic boomed us!” 

Dang that was funny. His timing retelling the story was perfect. He had me rolling in laughter. 

He died in his sleep that night. 

And to think; he shared his story with me. Wow.

—

A parish pastor is often blessed with a wonderful youth fellowship group. Some led their group with resentment because no one else would step up. I always enjoyed leading youth, helping shape and form them into budding Christians ready to embrace college, military service, or the trades.  

Many have gone one to earn a terminal degree, a journeyman accreditation, or find promotion up the ranks. It is incredible to consider the hard work and long hours spent to make themselves into better versions, rising higher in experience and responsibility. Doctors, lawyers, veterinarians, professors, teachers, optometrist, nurses, firefighters, police officers. I swell with pride the fact that God brought our lives together for a time. You make me feel like a proud grandfather.

One of my former youth was killed in a motorcycle accident. No drugs or alcohol was involved; its thought he simply fell asleep after an all-night ride. To boot, I had recently celebrated the funeral for his father who died from Alzheimer’s. The former member of the youth fellowship was estranged from his wife and living alone. Don’t know. Life happens.

Yet, he had put himself through medical school, joined the Reserve, and became a General Medical Officer, a flight surgeon for the wing. In his free time, he started a not-for-profit free clinic for the large number of homeless veterans in his community. He was known to visit vets living under bridges and in tents out in the bush. 

What a life! And I was privileged to have him in my church and youth group when he was a child. He and the Apostle shared the same first name.

A service had been held in his base chapel, attended by the Governor’s spouse. He got a flyover of C-130s. I can only imagine in my mind’s eye how those huge aircraft performed a missing man flight. His Reserve unit was kind enough to fly his remains home. 

“Could you do his funeral,” his breaking mother asked. 

“Yes,” I replied. “Yes, of course. It would be my honor.” 

We buried his cremains next to his father’s in a sunbaked village cemetery. Taps were played. Rifles were fired. The shell casings were tucked into the folded flag, and it was presented to his mother on behalf of the president and a grateful nation. 

The mixture of gratitude, faith, and grief drained every ounce of energy out of me. I needed time by the railroad tracks; to wait, to watch, to listen. That day, the kingdom of God came close, oh, so close.

And I cried.

46. A Higher Level of Care

~ toddgoddard ~ 1 Comment

The Pitt is a masterful rendition of a fast moving Emergency Department. Like its predecessor, ER, the pace, emotions, and procedures reflect my own experiences in ERs around the region. With my wife, with over 40 years of Labor and Delivery experience, and my experience running EMS and Psychiatric Assessments, we love to watch each episode, call out bull shit when we see it, fill in blank spots in our knowledge. To a large extent, Hollywood gets it right. 

Shout out to ED staffs of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, and techs. I loved them all. Some became more than professional acquaintances; friends even. There would be middle of the night calls, when everything was settling down and paperwork was complete, when one would pull up a chair and we’d begin to talk about theology, family, politics, cases. 

It was always a huge relief to transfer care to ER staff, professionals with a higher level of care than my meager Intermediate Life Support Emergency Medical Technician certification allowed. Responsibility for life and limb weighs heavy on every medic. Training only goes so far; it kept me focused in the center of the hurricane, yet, each and every one of us responding to the cry for help from a neighbor remained deeply human. I felt, and cared, deeply for the human hurt and pain I heard and experienced.

—

The man sitting on the gurney opposite from me in the small psychiatric ER room was dressed in uniform. He had just completed his work day, jumped into his pickup truck and drove straight to the ER. He knew he was in trouble, just as serious as if he had crushing chest pains and difficulty breathing. 

Except, he didn’t. 

This soft spoken member of the law enforcement community had been hearing voices recently telling him to kill his wife. He knew they were not real, for he could not locate any source of the voices outside of himself. His experience, he reported to me, was more real than mere fleeting thoughts that could be brushed away by refocusing on a different tasks. He reported to me that he heard these voices plain as day. They began when he woke, continued through the day and into the night. 

He loved his wife, and children. From his world view there was no reason to want to bring harm or violence to his wife or family. Unnerving. Frightening. Terrifying, even. With no history of mental illness, this gentleman came to me desperate for help.

“The voices tell me to shoot her,” he reported. “They are breaking me down, and I’m afraid the only way to make them stop is to do it, even though I don’t want to.” My heart broke for this man, all the while, my brain is franticly searching for cause, treatment, and a path leading to a healthy outcome. He checked the homicidal box, had the means, and desire to carry through on his plan. 

Doing nothing wasn’t an option. He was also armed. 

People who experience homicidal ideation can be very dangerous, not only towards their target, but also to anyone else on the sidelines. Experience and crisis intervention training taught me to establish a non-anxious presence, de-escalate and maintain calm, and compassionately remove the threat. My affect was laid back and empathetic, words were soft and eyes expressed kindness. My brain was praying for God’s mercy to work in and through me. 

My legal pad was full of notes taken, a life spilled into my lap, emotionally flailing in an attempt to find a way out. Even during our interview I could see him wince, blink hard, when he heard his command hallucinations. Maybe he was attempting to block that which was assaulting him. 

“Give me one moment,” I said as I stood and stepped towards the door. “I’ll be right back.” And I left him, sitting in silence, on a hospital gurney, in a small ER room, armed with a gun. 

I went straight to the attending ER doctor, pulled him aside and gave him the brief run down. “And he’s armed,” I told him, driving home the life held by a thread, serious nature of the patient. Fear wasn’t on my radar. Training and experience kept me laser focused. Yes, there was mortal danger, but thinking about that could be postponed to later. Then I could collapse in the staff lounge with a case of the he-be geebies. 

No. He-be geebies cannot be found in the clinical manual of psychiatric disorders. That doesn’t mean they aren’t real. “I’m on it,” doctor Mark told me. “Go back in and keep him calm.” 

So I re-entered the exam room, pen and legal pad in hand. Memory fails regarding what we spoke about, but it must have been effective because he remained calm and quiet. Time passed, as if I could hear every tick of a sweep second hand on the clock. Our conversation was almost casual. There was a knock at the door. 

Turning to stand and open the door, it exploded open and in rushed the A-team. Cops, hospital security, lots of big burley men. I slipped out, unseen. It was over before the patient knew what was happening. He was restrained and disarmed, not of just one handgun, but two. Later, his pickup truck in the parking lot also sported a cache of firearms and ammunition, now secure. Whew!

A tragedy was averted that evening. A story was written that never made the evening news. A tortured mind was made safe, and I can only hope and pray, he was able to find the cause of his hallucinations, to be effectively treated, and to return to a life filled with love and family. 

Why? I wondered. There are many possible causes for such a condition. Medical, chemical, disease, abuse, hereditary, you name it. UTI? Brain tumor? Late onset Schizophrenia? Sometimes it is nearly impossible to nail down a cause, let alone treatment. There but by the grace of God goes any of us. It was by that same grace that I was effective and safe that hot summer evening so long ago in the ER. 

Thank you, Lord. 

—

Every lap in the pool this morning was shared with a fellow traveler on this journey called life. He was kind is offering to share a lane, faster than me – aren’t they all? – completing three laps to my every two. 

Each time we passed I squeezed tight to the lane markers, compensating for the violence of water, splash, and wave. It was as if his displacement pushed against me. It wasn’t intentional, just physics. 

Water has to go somewhere. I reflect on the wet spring we are experiencing, breaking records I hear from the evening weather report. Streams, running chocolate brown, fill their banks full to overflowing. Low dams that used to support mills long since gone have been swept clean of debris, water swift, flowing so fast over the crest it registers as hardly a bump. Low lands, fields, and lawns flood, basements fill, and rain continues to fall. 

Pool water refreshes. River water cleanses. Filtered water nourishes. Baptismal water stakes a claim. 

—

All the classroom training cannot prepare an EMS medic for the full reality of traumatic injury and death. Experience is the only calming effect I know of. Debriefing helps reduce the debilitating effects of post-traumatic stress. But that comes after the fact. This is where having experienced leadership is essential to the effective deployment of an emergency medical services agency. 

We were blessed with Vince and Jean. Retired, but not inactive, a husband and wife duo who had been in on the ground level of emergency medical services in the 1940’s and 50’s, when local undertakers gladly passed responsibility to someone else, anyone else, usually to volunteer fire departments! The ubiquitous black hearse with a gumball light would be replaced with municipally funded, hand crafted ambulances, complete with trained medics and drivers, lights and sirens. Trauma medicine had advanced by leaps and bounds during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. It was making the leap into every neighborhood and community in the country. 

Vince and Jean, lifelong members of the Reformed church, had seen it and done it all. Some new bucks rebelled against their authority, but quickly were told to toe the line or get out. That’s what the other ambulance service in town was for; our rejects, and it showed, or so we believed. 

Her name escapes me. She was alive when I got to her. Her elderly body trapped by steel and plastic, covered with cubes of broken safety glass, violence now ended, leaving her with exposed bone, blood, and brains. But, she was breathing and had a heartbeat. “Launch Mercy Flight,” I requested in my radio. Standing back, ever the leader and safety officer, Vince agreed and relayed my request to dispatch. 

Our rescue crew fired up the Jaws of Life, its small engine powering a hydraulic set of pincers, coughed and came to life. All I could get at was covering her nose, or what was left of it, with a non-rebreather mask and 16 liters of pure oxygen. A fireman threw a blanked over the two of us, shielding us from shards of glass and flying plastic parts. Her vehicle had been obliterated, engine separated from frame, axels departed, steel twisted, steam hissing, electrical connections severed, one wheel 150 feet down the road resting in a ditch. 

Pulling into the path of a car doing 55 will do that to a vehicle. I know, from personal experience, both as a medic, and, later in life, as a patient. 

Firefighters set up a landing zone a few hundred yards away on a driveway well clear of overhead obstructions. Mercy Flight landed with sound and fury, just as my patient was freed from entrapment. C-collar. Back board. The non-rebreather reservoir inflating and deflating with every breath, until it didn’t. 

Shit. Respiratory arrest, I called out. The Bag-Valve-Mask (BVM) came out and we took over breathing for our unconscious patient. Unbelievable, but she had a pulse. 

The impeccably coifed flight paramedic approached from behind and snarled at me, “what did you call us for? She’s in arrest. We can’t transport a patient in respiratory arrest.” 

“Well, she wasn’t when I called you,” I responded, anger rising. Now he was on the scene, as a paramedic, he was a higher level of care than me, so the ball was in his court. His call. What was he going to do?

First things first. A is for airway. We loaded her temporarily in our ambulance so he could sink an Endo-Tracheal tube. That meant starting an IV and the paramedic pushing drugs that sedated and paralyzed her. We worked like demons with the house on fire. Success meant a possibility, however slim, for life. Failure, and, well. We might just as well call the undertaker and go home. 

Oh. Yeah. There was blood, bone, and brain all over the place. But she still had a heartbeat. 

“We fly,” he decided, as he looked at me and said, “and you’re bagging her all the way to the hospital.” 

My heart jumped. The prospect of flying in a helicopter, a new experience. “Sure,” I smiled, wiping away the sweat dripping into my eyes.

Bagging was made easier because the BVM was connected to the ET tube. We extracted from the ground ambulance, and with the assistance of big, burley firefighters, rolled the gurney to the idling helicopter, helmeted pilot still in his seat. We ducked beneath the blades, and steered clear of the tail rotor, just as instructed in training, ball caps removed and secured under the belt. The backboard slid between the clamshell doors. I entered the starboard side door, of a very small, cramped compartment. As the patient slid into place, I resumed respirations, knees sandwiching her ears, hunched over, head above her belly. The paramedic behind me monitored the EKG, drugs, and IV lines.

I couldn’t move, shift my weight, or adjust my position. Other than my hands squeezing the breath of life into our critical patient, I became one big cramp. If only I could have looked up or out a window.

The flight to Strong Memorial Hospital was all business. We landed with a thump. Only when the patient was slid from beneath me was I able to move, barely. Fortunately, plenty of hospital personnel took over and I was freed to work my aching muscles.

The broken woman delivered to trauma care remains nameless to this day. I don’t know if she lived or died. If she lived, God help her, for her broken body and bones, and lacerated brains, would need something more than the balm of Gilead.

The turn around was fast; much faster than I was used to on a ground ambulance. The roof top helicopter pad needed to be opened as soon as possible. “Let’s go,” the aeromedical paramedic said to me. Up and out we went.

He helped me strap in and dawn a flight helmet, complete with intercom. “Welcome to my bird,” the pilot said to me. “Time to go home.”

“Can you take me back to Palmyra?”

“No can do, buddy. Rules say I have to take the chopper back to base in Canandaigua. Don’t worry, we’ll get you home.”

“Okay, then,” I said, thinking to myself that my little joy ride just made a three hour ambulance call into a six.

“No worry,” the pilot replied. “Rules don’t say I can’t give you a guided tour back home.”

And so we went, flew up and straight south-east, out of the Rochester airspace. Over Mendon, not quite half way, the pilot began to dive and swoop, banking left and right, giving me a joy ride unlike the best rollercoaster anywhere. It was glorious! I laughed until I cried. The views were fantastic.

The pilot straightened up approaching the Canandaigua airport, set the skids down on a wagon slightly bigger than a Radio Flyer, shut down, and a John Deere lawn tractor towed us into the hanger. I wondered how that was done. Now, I knew!

The owner of Mercy Flight, Paul H., met me as I got out of the aircraft. He shook my hand and thanked me for the help. Hey, I was free labor; why wouldn’t he have a smile on his face? Paul was nice and offered me a ride home to Palmyra. “Sure,” I smiled. “Thank you.” We talked EMS and Mercy Flight all the way back.

I was dropped off at the fire station and everyone crowed around, welcoming me home. “How was it?” “Enjoy the ride?” “Did she make it?”

All the while Vince and Jean stood back, arms folded across the chest, waiting, quietly smiling. When the crowd thinned, then dispersed, Vince came over and said to me, “Good job, Todd. You did real good.”

That was all I needed to hear.

Thank you Lord, for great training and the support of a professional team, all volunteers. Thank you, for higher levels of care. Thank you, for Vince and Jean.

44. Man Down

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

A good EMS call is an adrenaline rush no pharmacological recipe could come close to replicating. After years of training and experience all of us medics were never out of earshot from our portable pagers. They recharged batteries on the bed stand. They hung on our hips as we made our way throughout the day. Pity the poor fool who lost their pager, or worse, were unwitting accomplices to their destruction. 

Driving a pumper on a Thursday training evolution, I parked the water heavy iron monster, set the emergency brake, and bent over to chalk the wheels. Little did I know, my pager slipped off my belt, slid to the ground, and landed right in front of the rear wheels. After training, hanging up my gear, I felt for my pager. It was one of those “Oh, crap!” agonizing moments of frantic searching, all for naught. I lived with a spare replacement and the shame of losing face in front of the other members of my EMS crew and line firefighters. 

The next spring, at the annual banquet, I did the requisite chaplain duty of saying grace and introducing the M.C. for the evening, a well-known local radio personality. Introductions were made of the incoming team of officers. Thanks were extended to the outgoing group. The awards came after steak and deserts. Many in attendance were six or more drinks into the festivities. The chief called me forward.

“Oh, great. Now what did I do?”

He held a wrapped gift and began to make his presentation, pulling slowly on his prepared speech to wring out the maximum drama. He told the story of my lost pager and frantic, unsuccessful attempt to locate it. A lot of cat calls, hooting, and laughter was hitting me like a fire hose. My cheeks burned red with embarrassment. I smiled, forced a thank you, and accepted his gift. 

“Go ahead,” he said. “Unwrap it right now in front of everyone.”

One hundred fifty firefighter, spouses, and distinguished guests shifted forward in their chairs and looked intently at my unenviable position. Gift paper shredded to reveal a homemade plaque, on which was glued thousands of destroyed pieces of my former pager. The chief saw it on the ground after I pulled the chalks and drove off, crushing it beneath the real wheels of my fire truck. He saw the opportunity and seized the day. Good on him. 

It was the only pager I had to replace. 

___

“Man down” was an EMS call we all lived for. The response was always balls to the walls, drop everything, and hit the gas. Calls were generally categorized by type: either medical or traumatic, and, severity: Critical, Unstable, Potentially unstable, and Stable. Training gave us the acronym we used by memory: “Fit to CUPS”. Our department ran “Ya’ll come” calls, as opposed to shift work, like paid and other agencies. The tones dropped, tripping everyone’s pager, and you responded. On EMS calls, some responded to the barn to drive the rig, others of us carried equipment in our personal vehicles and drove directly to the scene. You’d see medics who made a bare minimum of calls per month show up at “man down” calls and try to take over. Talk to the hand, dude. 

Some were funny, despite the fact that a life was dangling by a thread.

“Man down. Not breathing,” the 911 dispatcher told us after dropping our pager tones. As per protocol, an Advanced Life Support paramedic team was dispatched from 20 miles away. The call was a good six miles from our station into our neighboring fire district. I was the Intermediate Life Support medic, so I’d be the first on scene and be able to initiate immediate care. If the paramedic made it there before we left, great; join the party. If not, we were told not to delay transport and head for the hospital. Maybe we could meet enroute, but today, it was unlikely.

The call was to a large farmhouse at the end of a long country lane. “AM-24 on scene,” Vern, my driver, informed dispatch. On the gurney I loaded the medic bag, Oxygen tank, defibrillator, portable radio. The kitchen door opened to my banging. “You call for the ambulance?” I asked the woman who answered the door. She was barely dressed with a toddler on her hip. Another near naked woman with a baby on her hip was cooking bacon on the stove. “He’s in there,” she pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. 

Vern and I pushed in to the bedroom. We found a middle aged buck naked male laying face up on the bed. Full Monty. Was there a smile on his face? I don’t know. He wasn’t talking. Or breathing. I called on the radio for more help and pulled him off the bed to the floor and began CPR. Memory fades, but I probably attempted to jump start his heart into a survivable rhythm. In time, more of my crew arrive. They took over the thump and pump while I sunk an E.T. tube, taking control of his respirations. The IV could wait until the back of the ambulance. ALS was still fifteen minutes out. Time to hit the gas and haul ass. 

Stretcher and patient, equipment, and crew pushed out the bedroom, through the kitchen and out to the idling ambulance. Barely pausing to notice, the two mommas and babies continued to go about their business in the kitchen, as if it was another ordinary morning. I paused for a moment, “What is his name?” I asked, the Patient Care Record (PCR) and clip board in hand. One looked at the other; they both look back at me, in unison shrugged their shoulders and said, “I don’t know.” 

—

Most were not. 

Two a.m. Nothing good happens at 2:00 a.m. “Man down.” The address was well known to me, elderly members of my parish, the parents of one of our village cops. In a flurry, I dressed, called in route, and met the wife at the back door. “Bill is in the bathroom,” she cried.

Lots of cardiac arrests take place on the commode. We were taught in training that the same nerves that are used to strain are also the ones that control normal heart rhythms. Push too hard or too long, and that predisposed vessel or electrical pathway just might blow. Poop is often involved. It isn’t pretty and I’ve been at that retching call far too many times.

Problem was, this evening, Bill was wedged unconscious against the bathroom door, preventing it from opening more than a sliver. “Bill!” I shouted. No response. “You awake?” Pushing hard, I could see there wasn’t any movement. Eyes closed, head down, chin buried in his chest. Grace, his wife, sobbed in the background. Still by myself, I got on the radio and called for more help. Shit. I couldn’t get in to get him out. I needed beefy firemen with wrecking tools. Fast. 

Yet, never one to give up easily …

I pushed and pulled with all my might. Leaned my shoulder into everything I had to give. “Sorry, Grace. The door has to go,” I apologized. Seeing this unsolvable puzzle blocking any hope for a successful outcome, she mumbled, “Do what you gotta do, Pastor Todd.” 

BAM! I hit the bathroom door, breaking it off its hinges, knocking Bill completely off the commode. I struggled through the debris and dragged him by his nightshirt, pajama bottoms down around his ankles, into the kitchen. “CPR in progress. Hit our tones again for more help,” I called into my radio. I thumped and pumped all by myself. Five compressions, one breath. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. 

Exhausting. Sweat in the eyes. Where was my crew? Sirens wailed throughout the village. If Bill had any chance, it was with me. His pastor. His medic. From experience, the outlook didn’t look good. Crews began to call on scene. Between compressions, I caught a glimpse of highly polished shoes and a police officer’s cuffs. “Give me a hand, buddy,” I called to the cop talking on his portable. 

He froze. “Come on, dude. I need a hand.” He didn’t move. I continued CPR until I rolled off completely whipped by my arriving crew. “What in the actual …” I was about to cuss just as I caught sight of the frozen police officer. Recognition was immediate. It was Bill’s son. “I can’t,” he cried. “I couldn’t.” 

At the end of the day, it wouldn’t have mattered. Bill had been down and not breathing long enough on the commode nothing could have been done to change the outcome, even though we tried. Minutes matter when brain cells go without oxygen, and they only get oxygen from the blood cells pumped by the heart. The pump stops, the brain dies. That’s all she wrote.

The family recognized our effort and memorial donations came into our Fire Department and the church. I sat in the same kitchen with a cup of coffee with Grace and her son a few months later. “How would you like the memorial money used?” I asked. 

“Bill loved stained glass windows at church. What do you think? Is there any way this could be possible?”

Above the East entrance to the Palmyra (formerly) United Methodist Church there is a stained glass window in memory of Bill. May it long stir fond memories and witness to the benefits of a depth of faith.

—

The lap pool called my name twice this past week, instead of the usual Monday, Wednesday, Friday two-step. The transition weather we are experiencing between winter and spring tends to give wild fluctuations off the beam of emotional stability. Nothing quite like a forecaster’s prediction of snow after a week of mild calm. In a lame excuse to myself, a vigorous walk on the indoor track would have to do.

Laps are reflective, meditative; uninterrupted silence where thoughts tend to invite and invoke critical moments in life. Man down calls invoke memories of my father’s sudden cardiac death over forty years ago, September 30, 1985. He had recently completed a cardiac stress test and received a clean bill of health. He jogged multiple times a week, keeping his weight under control and his inner demons at bay. Newly appointed to a church in Central New York, one morning he fell weak, tired, lost consciousness and died.

On the ambulance, we called it DRT. Dead. Right. There.

Mom had just gotten him in the car to drive to the doctor’s office when his mortal fire was extinguished. The medic on the ambulance who responded? Yeah. Unbeknownst to me, she would become one of my instructors when I went through training and recertifications. It’s a small world, filled with divine agents of God’s amazing grace.

As my arms and shoulders tired, I thought about the anxiety carried forward attributed to my father’s death. He died at age 59, three months, nine days. Translated to my own life, that year was one where I watched the calendar closely. Would I survive the old man? There are thousands of reasons for a heart to stop, which gives pause to downing that greasy hamburger and fries. Was I fated by poor genetic sequencing?  I inquired of my siblings, each expressing relief when they aged one day older than dad.

Last year, visiting my brother, a retired physician, we were talking about dad’s unexpected sudden cardiac arrest. We both outlived our fated genetics, I observed. “What do you mean?” Bryan responded. “It wasn’t genetics that killed dad. It was a virus.”

I blinked once. Twice. Three times. Did I hear what I thought I heard?

Yep. My brother gave me the detailed account of how he insisted on having an autopsy performed after Dad’s unexpected death. The finding? His heart was inflamed by a viral infection and had swelled to over three times it’s normal size. Swelled heart inside a fixed container resulted in a heart that grew progressively inefficient and eventual death. “Moral of the story?” my brother paused for effect. “Always get your vaccines.”

And for all those years of worry? Thankfully, they are all behind me, like the final stroke on my last lap before the showers.

___

Some “man down” calls just made me angry.

Memorial Day. Kids off from school. Big parade planned in the village. High school bands were marching in hot, wool uniforms. A brief service at the village cemetery planned by the American Legion completed the annual ritual. As fire department chaplain and local church pastor, my roll was to provide the invocation and benediction in my fire department dress uniform. As a N.Y. State certified medic, I’d ride shotgun in the ambulance, tucked nicely behind every truck the chief could get on the road. We had both our rigs in the parade, each loaded with a full crew in dress uniforms. Siren jockeys deafened the crowd. Firefighters riding the trucks dressed in bunker gear tossed hard candy to scampering children in the crowd.

In front of our ambulance marched the American Legion color guard. You’ve seen them; guys dressed in spit polished shoes and starched uniforms, toting flags of state and nation, or, sporting rifles used for a twenty-one gun salute in the cemetery. Most had beer bellies hanging over their belt, or long hair and a beard, a far cry from their active duty days. Lots of gray hair were tucked underneath service hats, adorned with pins and patches.

The route was long through the village under a hot sun. Didn’t bother me; I closed the window and turned up the air conditioning. The parade concluded at the cemetery; a right turn, roll under the arches (while fire trucks returned to base), then snaking our way to the veteran’s memorial, on a hill, center rear. Podium and bleachers under beautiful hardwood branches waited for our arrival. Thousands of patriotic neighbors lined the path and crowded in at our destination.

It was a beautiful day for a parade.

I saw him drop. It was called a witnessed arrest. The moment his heart seized to a stop, the Legionnaire 20 feet in front of our ambulance lost consciousness and slumped like a bag of potatoes to the ground. Vern hit the brakes and got on the radio, calling for help. Within 10 seconds half the medics in our department were on our feet, hauling equipment, and rushing to the unconscious veteran’s side. The marching band stopped playing. People surrounding the entry road to the cemetery bunched into a crowd. Hundreds came together like subway riders at rush hour, each straining to see what often isn’t seen by the general public.

We know CRP and put it to practical use nearly on a weekly basis. Basic Life Support (BLS) medics started the thump and pump. My Advanced Life Support (ALS) partner opened the airway kit and prepared to intubate. Another of our crew used trauma scissors to bare the patient down to his shorts and socks. I worked the semi-auto cardiac defibrillator, placing sticky electrode pads on his hairy chest, ankles and wrists.  

“Everybody! Clear!” I ordered. This gave us a clean strip to read, record, and interpret, as well as, healthy separation of my crew from the massive amounts of joules I was prepared to release from the unit’s high-tech batteries. I switched to manual. I wanted full control of the trigger in the right handed paddle. Conductive jell was spread liberally. “Charging to 120.” The internal capacitors filled with the tell-tale whine. I paused to survey the scene.

A pulseless, breathless patient. Everyone on my crew letting go and stepping back. Time slowed. I saw the crowd and squinted, the hot sun in my eyes, humidity as thick as molasses, sweat rolling into my eyes, perspiration soaking my shirt, soon to make me clammy. Spectators, hushed,  watching the drama unfolding before their very eyes, seeing what shouldn’t be seen. A man’s life account being settled, his existence held at the precipice edge, the raging current pulling at his lifeless body.

And there was an idiot with a camcorder. Red LED blinking not 20 feet away.

“Aug!” my inner voice turned rage inside out, “Stop CPR. Clear.” Everyone obeyed. “Shocking 120!” as I depressed the trigger, the patient shuttering as expected. Normal sinus rhythm was nowhere to be found. The tape printed an exotic cardiac rhythm way beyond my pay grade to make hide or hair of its meaning. All I knew was that it remained a shockable rhythm even though there wasn’t a pulse or breath. “Stop CPR. Clear.” The scene remained safe. “Charging to 200. Shocking 200!”

The neanderthal with the camcorder perched on his shoulder squeezed in closer, tighter. The captain of our ambulance stood back, arms crossed, doing his own survey of the scene, taking it all in. “Clear,” I called out a third time. We only got three chances in the field. Someone trained to a higher level of care might have different rules, but I was three shocks and done. CPR stopped a third time and everyone backed off, yet again. “Charging to 360.” I waited for the alerting tone indicating a full charge. “Shocking 360!”

Nothing, damn it. “Resume CPR.” Jimmy would try his ET and IV sticks inside the rig, away from prying eyes. “Let’s load and go,” I yelled. Swinging onto the rig, I looked back for a moment, right into the lens of the camcorder staring me in the face. The brief pause almost irrupted like a volcano of rage, veins in my temple bulging. Lips tightened, less I say something regrettable, the door slammed shut behind me. For a moment I let the anger dissipate before refocusing on the task at hand. All hands were needed. A job needed to be done.

It didn’t come as a surprise. No, the patient did not survive. Few did. What surprised me most, is that the entire Memorial Day parade “man down” call, fully recorded on videotape, did not end up on the evening news. Thank you, God.  

41. Are You Thinking of Harming Yourself or Someone Else?

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

No textbooks were involved in this reflection. These pastoral observations come from lived experience and the blessings of a fulfilling apprenticeship in the learned art of psychiatric assessments. The reader is welcome to take from my musing; what works, what doesn’t, and discard the rest.

“Are you thinking of harming yourself or someone else?” This seems like such a simple question. If it is so simple, try asking it of someone else.

“How dare you?” “It’s none of your business.” “Don’t you know who I am?” Strap in for the expected whiplash reaction. Because an anticipated response has the potential to damage or harm a relationships. It can be far easier to avoid the issue. Don’t talk about the elephant in the room, and, maybe, it will go away. Other than lawyers, who wants confrontation, anyways?

If you don’t know; ask.

Your curiosity didn’t come out of nowhere. You wonder about a person’s safety for a reason. It might be the way they look, suspicious behavior, or sudden changes in life status. In my experience, faith suggest that these moments of questions are intersections between God and consciousness; or, God moments, using common language. Could it be that God wants you to know? Could it be that God has already been priming the pump? Could it be that God chose you to be the one who prevents a tragedy?  

When asked respectfully and compassionately, most people who have experienced homicidal or suicidal thoughts will honestly respond. Why? Because they’ve come to believe that you care. Most desire to be rid of such hideous, unrelenting thoughts. Telling someone else can ease the burden. Don’t we all want to be made whole?

Keep a box of tissues close at hand.

It is as if thoughts of homicide or suicide are signs of weakness. When connected to one’s mental health, thoughts of self-harm or harming others arise from more complicated processes. In my experience conducting psychiatric assessments some of those sources may be childhood sexual abuse, trauma, a manipulative religious experience, alcohol or substance abuse, sudden onset of situational stress, disease and neurological chemical imbalances, and, drawing an unlucky hand, simple genetics.

Abused children grow up to be messed up adults. Those adults are at risk of sharing the pain with others, the consequences infecting successive generations, thus perpetuating the original sin. Prisons, psychiatric hospitals, and therapist chairs are overflowing with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Responsible adults are good and faithful stewards of the community’s children, blood relative, or not. Responsible people look after one another. Thank you, Lord, for highly trained, committed professionals who are able to intervene and break the cycle of child abuse, and provide effective treatment methods that lead to healing.

Trauma is a can of whoop-ass, when unleashed. Trauma gets burned into the neuronal pathways of the brain. Traumatic memories don’t seem to fade, like other, less significant memories, like the color of the most recent car that pulled into the neighbor’s driveway.

Traumatic memories tend to bloom and grow over time, if left untreated. Traumatic impacted imagination tends to fill in missing details, causing  memory to become more vivid or realistic, some memories based in reality, others, not so much. Those protein encrusted electrical pathways from brain cell to brain cell remain active day and night, often abruptly interrupting sleep with nightmares, or interfering pleasant experience with intrusive, disturbing thoughts. Trauma is a specialty in mental health unto itself, requiring far smarter and more experienced people than me to walk with people in a journey toward wellness.

Yep, bad religious experiences can make people crazy enough to take a life, their own or someone else. Bad theology can lead to guilt, depression, a pervasive sense of failure. Charismatic, manipulative religious leaders can take advantage of people’s weakness or lack of self-esteem. Inflexible doctrine, fundamentalist polity, judgment, fear, and manipulation are tools of religious extremists, at either end of the theological spectrum. This can contribute to an erosion of mental health. When in doubt, erring on the side of grace and love always works for me. Or, perhaps, a graceful approach allows God to work through me.

Drugs and alcohol, really, both two sides of the same coin, can make people homicidal or suicidal. What first is a means to feel better, when misused over a period of time, can lead some people to frantic, unrelenting obsessions for more, and more, and more. The research community is far better equipped to find safer, more effective means of symptomatic relief or diseases altering qualities, than I am. Self-medication is a bad strategy for living a healthy, fulfilling life, especially in this day and age with access to a wide array of effective, therapeutic treatments.

Sudden stress can make people snap. I’ve seen it happen far too often. Lose a job; jump in front of a train. A sudden death of a child; take a high dive off a bridge. Devastating diagnosis; go find your revolver. Caught in a crime; find a piece of rope. Intervention of a loved one, pastor, or professional clinician is essential to heading off deadly behavior in these, or similar, unfortunate circumstances.  

Brain chemistry can become unsettled, leading to pervasive thoughts of wanting to hurt self or others. General medical conditions, such as urinary tract infections, thyroid disease, poly pharmacy (taking a mixture of medications with troublesome  side effects), malnutrition, and others … can all lead one to the crazy train bound for destruction.

Chronic mental diseases, such as untreated (or undertreated) bipolar disorder and schizophrenia will often include delusional mortal thoughts. A thorough physical exam by a professional clinician is absolutely required of everyone who finds themselves thinking about harming themselves or others.

Get thee to your primary care physician – immediately! – if thinking of hurting yourself or others. Speak candidly with your doctor. Suppress fear or guilt and lay it all out there for their evaluation. They can’t be your best doctor if they don’t have all the information.

Whole libraries have been written about each of these contributing factors for malignant ideation. If interested, dig deeper. Explore. Read. Take a class. Work on a degree. Just as important: be kind, tolerant, understanding. Listen. Be curious. Build trust. Recognize your limits and set boundaries. Be humble enough to bring people to a competent mental health professional.

Have compassion for those hurt or broken, either by their own bad choices or just the circumstances of nature. Ask to be a channel of God’s love to a world full of hurt and harm.

Be the balm of Gilead that heals the wounded soul.

…

Laps at the pool the other day flew by as if a flash. My thoughts were filled with gratitude, with a focus on my learning to swim.

Dad had operated a learn to swim program for the American Red Cross at the new Jamestown High School pool in the early 1960’s. He and my older brother, Steve, even had a program to teach individuals with Down Syndrome how to swim, one of the first of its kind in the nation, or so I was told.

I was taught to hold my breath, put my face in the water, and blow bubbles. Once accomplished, I was shown how to dog paddle. Before I knew it, I was navigating around the shallow end of the pool. Later, I began to mimic the strokes of more advanced swimmers, learning rhythmic breathing, the crawl stroke, the back and side strokes.

The water gave me a freedom to maneuver, to go where I wanted to, to explore, and meet other people. Learning to dive to the bottom instilled a sense of freedom in three dimensions. My sister, Cindy, was a member of the synchronized swim team. She moved with beauty, grace, and efficiency through the water. Steve on the diving board gave me the confidence to enter the water head first. If he could do it, so could I. Learning to swim built self-confidence.

Swimming is a gift that I don’t take for granted. It can save a life. It is good for the soul. Fifteen laps ticked by; before I knew it, I was under a hot shower afterwards feeling the warmth of God’s love and the gratitude for a wonderful family.

—

The not-so-obvious follow up question to a positive response addresses lethality. “What are your plans?”

A lethal homicidal or suicidal individual most often will have thought through elaborate plans and set in place necessary means to complete their deed. Multiple prior attempts increases the risk. Less lethal is the person who may have had thoughts, but who haven’t thoroughly thought through their plan.

For a psychiatric assessment officer such as myself, experience and collaboration with other clinical professionals will conduct a risk assessment. Risk cannot be truly eliminated, but it can be appropriately managed. It is the art of balancing risk and reward. Only those who are assessed to be actively lethal and have a plan to carry it out are appropriate for involuntary commitment to a secure psychiatric hospital. Even then, the confinement is for a short period of time, with periodic re-assessment such that an individual’s civil rights are not violated.

The goal is immediate treatment, stabilization, and release with immediate, intensive out-patient follow-up care. Medication balances the playing field; counseling provides insight, education, support, and healing.

“What brings you to the hospital this evening?” I asked the ten year old girl sitting on the gurney before me.

“The police brought me here,” she replied. Her mother and siblings were waiting in tears in the emergency room waiting room just down the hallway.

“Can you tell me why the police brought you here?”

“I pushed my friend in front of a school bus,” she replied.

“What made you do that?”

“She is a bully and she is trying to steal my boyfriend,” I seem to recall her answer.

Thereupon the table was set to uncover all the key motives and factors that led up to this near tragic encounter. She was amazingly candid with me. I was truly curious about her experience. I got the sense that she was measured, calculated, and logical in her thinking. At that moment, she intended to kill.

“Do you plan to try to kill her again?” I asked.

“Yep. At the very next chance I get.”

That sealed the deal. I finished the interview, thanked her for being honest and truthful with me, and departed to set into motion an intervention that I hoped and prayed would reduce her lethality, stabilize her mental health, and start her on the long journey of healing and recovery.

Psychiatric assessments are team work. We are cautious, never punitive, always acting in the best interests of the patient and family. A sad reality, in that day and age, New York State was resource poor in the treatment of pediatric and adolescent psychiatric patients. The demand far exceeded the supply. I ran my report past the E.R. doctor and got his signature. I consulted with the on call psychiatrist. She agreed.

I updated her mother that we were admitting her daughter to involuntary in-patient psychiatric care. This took time. A lot of tears flowed. Guilt and regret. One can only imagine. Her emotional support took time and greatly drained me. “Sit tight,” I finally got around to saying, “and I’ll get back to you when I find your daughter a place.”

But where is there an open bed?

The University of Rochester, only 45 minutes away, was at capacity. The next nearest hospital was in Hornell, a good hour and a half. Nothing. I called the children’s unit in Buffalo. No dice. The Mohawk Valley. Nope. I was striking out left and right. I finally found an open bed in the lower Hudson River valley, over four hours away. I had no choice. “I’ll take it.”

I arranged for the doctor to doctor transfer, the nurse to nurse coordination, and for the local ambulance crew to make the transport. Paperwork was faxed back and forth. No medic likes a long transport of an involuntary psychiatric patient, let alone a child.

“Oh, the poor mother,” I thought to myself. The long distance separation would make the necessary family therapy a real challenge. Hopefully, stabilization would be quick and discharge to a local out-patient setting could ease the family stress.

And so it went. I wished her well and smiled as I closed the door on the ambulance. There was nothing more than I could do at that point than to deliver her over to the grace of God.

In that time and place, homicide didn’t happen. Neither did I hear anything later. And that, beloved, is a blessing.

40. Homicide and Mental Health In the Parish

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

About 2:00 am on a Saturday night my pager went off. It was always on alert, charged, by the side of my bed. “Man down. Main Street; in front of the Baptist Church. Police on scene.” Holy cow, this was a mere fifty yards from my parsonage, tucked in behind the United Methodist Church on the opposite corner. 

I put on my coveralls and shoes, grabbed the pager, and headed for my truck parked around back. Too close to drive, I fetched my medic kit, oxygen tank, automated external defibrillator (AED), and radio. In the self-made medic kit were a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, gloves, trauma dressings, forceps, a flashlight, glucose in squeeze tubes, and other assorted supplies.

“Palmyra 1415,” I called dispatch, “I’m on the scene,” even as I rounded the corner. I was close, but still had not laid eyes on what was going down. I was prepared for anything.

Or, so I thought.

I rounded the church to find a police cruiser with lights flashing, driver side door open, radio blaring, parked half in the street and half in the driveway next to the Baptist Church. On the sidewalk laid a man, face down. No cop to be found. Where was the perpetrator? Where is the village cop?

I thought to myself. Is the scene safe? This is one of the foundational lessons of Emergency Medical Services. One does not need to become a second victim.

I carefully approached, finding no one around. The man had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. I rolled him over on his back and noticed a blood stain growing on the left side of his chest. “Palmyra 1415,” I called again, “expedite the rig, start Advanced Life Support, and hit our pagers again for more help. CPR in progress.”

Then I started one person CPR.

What is taught in class is far different than the real thing. I’ve probably done CPR more than two hundred times. Never is it sanitary, especially in the elderly. Ribs get broken. People spew. The patient before me had been drinking beer all day, I later learned, and he responded like Vesuvius. Fifteen and two, was the standard of the day for one person CPR; fifteen compressions, followed by two breaths. Two mouth-to-mouth breaths. No, I did not have a CPR mask.  

Just hurl and get it out of your system, I learned early on. So I wretched to the side without breaking stride. Fifteen compressions, followed by two more breaths. What is also neglected in training is how exhausting CPR can be. Relief is necessary to maintain effective, uninterrupted compressions and breath. I was quickly losing steam. 

Then, a pair of shoes appeared next to me. “Jump in,” I asserted quite forcefully, “take over compressions.” No need for someone else to be covered in bile and vomit. “Palmyra AM-24 on the scene,” I heard on the radio. The scene was bathed in halogen headlights. Help had arrived. I didn’t even hear them calling dispatch that the ambulance and crew was responding.

Sirens, police cars, cars driven by my crew with flashing blue lights descended on the scene. It was like the cavalry was arriving. My crew took over CPR. Trauma scissors removed the patient’s shirt and pants, exposing one entry wound on the left side, between ribs. The open wound was oozing blood. The AED pads were applied and the machine was turned on. “Halt CPR,” I ordered. Asystole appeared on the screen, or, as everyone else knows it, flatline. Asystole is not a shockable cardiac rhythm. His heart had stopped beating and no amount of electrical charge could get it started again. 

With every compression, he continued to spew. The Endo-Tracheal tube slid between his vocal chords and was firmly placed, exactly as advertised. Thank you, Lord, for bright headlights and near perfect anatomy. The Bag-Valve-Mask (B.V.M.) was attached, making reparations much easier.  

As he was being packaged on a backboard and lifted onto the gurney, I got an I.V. established. There was no flash of blood, telling me his blood pressure was non-existent. Yet, the D5W dripped into his collapsing veins. Off we went in the ambulance. No Advanced Life Support was available, hence, the cardiac drugs would have to wait until the emergency room. My certification allowed me to start I.V.s and sink E.T. tubes, not pass pain relieving or cardiac medications. My crew did the thump and pump all the way to Newark Wayne, the closest hospital. We were all covered in spew. 

Windows open, exhaust fans on high, the AC cranked to 10; nothing could mask the smell. I made the radio call to the hospital and it must have sounded on the other end like I was in an open cockpit airplane. In the age before cell phones, we called in our patient reports to the emergency department over the open radio. Everyone with a scanner was privy to identity and health care information.

The backup alarm pulsed as my driver backed us into the ER bay. The doctor opened the back doors as soon as the rig came to a stop. His mouth was agape, surveying the organized chaos before him. He, too, turned shades of green, but refused to wretch. Wheeled into the trauma bay, the backboard and patient slid to the table under the bright lights of broken biology. 

Experience taught me to make the verbal report, then bow out and head to the janitors sink to fully immerse myself under pouring water, washing the offending fluid down the drain. The crew followed my example. We became like showered rats. 

Burned forever in my memory is the sight I witnessed while under the blessed stream of cleansing water. The patient was on the table, his left ribcage was lifted, and the doctor was up to his elbows reaching into the victims chest to message the heart. Rural EDs are often staffed with general practitioners, not specialists or surgeons. My doctor this evening literally had more than a handful. 

“Call it,” he told his code team. “The left ventricle is cut in two.” His gloved hand withdrew from the cavity. Without a left ventricle, blood can’t be pumped into the circulatory system. Life isn’t possible. He was dead before I got to him. 

A few weeks later, I’m gathered with my clergy colleagues around the breakfast table at a local diner. Bacon. Scrambled eggs, covered in Tabasco. Wheat toast. The same order for the past fifty years. We talked of church, parishioners, town gossip, the state of the country. Love was our common language, Jesus was our common redeemer. 

The door was awkwardly pushed open. In walked an elderly woman, assisted by a walker. She scanned the dining room. She set eyes on us and began to shuffle our way. “Don’t look now, but, I think we have a visitor.” We all tried to look innocent, uncertain what was to unfold. 

The woman stopped at the end of our table and asked, “Are you the group of ministers from town?” “Yep,” we all shook our head in agreement. “Is one of you Reverend Goddard from the Methodist Church?” She asked. Others sighed in relieve while I looked up and squirmed. “What can I do for you,” I asked, trying to force a smile. 

“You’re a medic on the ambulance, aren’t you?” 

“That would be me.”

“Were you on duty the night my son was killed?” She asked. Pause, then silence.

“Yes. Yes, I was,” I whispered.

He and his girlfriend had been drinking beer all day and had a fight late at night. The domestic dispute came out the back door and into the front yard. Neighbors called 911. She pulled a steak knife and sunk it into his chest. As he collapsed, she threw the knife into the bushes and ran. The police officer pulled in, and commenced to pursue, leaving just the victim for me to find. 

“Did he suffer?” she whispered.

It was like the Oxygen was sucked from the room and everything moved in slow motion. Carefully, gently, I responded, “No ma’am. Your son did not suffer.”

“Oh, thank you,” she surprise me. I rose to her embrace. “I’m so glad he didn’t suffer and that you were with him when he died.” Thank you, she repeated, wiping away the tears. Thank you.

You are welcome. 

—   

The pool felt good this morning. Lap after lap slid by, the silent count drummed by in my brain. Water walkers were in the lane to my left, swimmers churning water, passed me on my right. 

Slow is how I like to go. Deliberate. Disciplined. Holding back my full potential. 

Lent is a season of discipline, I remind myself.

Speed and strength are but memories of my youth. Wisdom keeps me in my place, protecting my geriatric frame and muscles from injury or harm. Head up. Eyes up, straining to look forward. Reaching, pulling, flying my hand over the surface back to the water before me. 

My hand skimming over the water, like the breath of God in the Creation. Ruach. 

The wind blows where it will. We neither know from where it came, or where it goes. That’s what Jesus said, so scripture informs us. 

Reach. Breathe. Pull. 

Where is it that I am going? Do we pull, or, are we pulled?

—-

Life settled down the eight years I served the parish in Palmyra. Church attendance hovered around ninety every Sunday. We were an active congregation, engaged in numerous local and distant missions. Church leadership liked to complain a lot, but we held it together for the common good.

We hosted twice a year chicken BBQs to bolster income, directing cars though the parking lot to a place where packaged dinners can be run out to the car. We cooked 625-750 chickens each round, halved, and flipped on huge home made wracks. Members of the parish were generous with donations of their time, pies, and all the makings for coleslaw. Our parsonage smelled like BBQ chicken for two weeks after each event.

My wife, Cynthia, was making the commute to her labor and delivery job in Geneva. Our son was taken to and from daycare in Canandaigua. There were church meetings a couple of times a week, senior citizens Bible study down at the high rise apartment complex in town, hospital and shut-in calls, worship planning, and sermon writing. I leveraged my math and computer science undergraduate to build a church web page right after Al Gore invented the internet. We were one of the first church web pages in existence. Email was delivered to my computer; too bad, in the early years, few were online to send it. There was no time for slowing down. In my early 30’s I felt invincible, professionally on an upward trajectory. The sky held no limits.

Except, I felt like I wanted more.

So, I did my medic thing and answered fire calls. I answered more than three hundred ambulance calls and over a hundred fire calls a year. House fires, car wrecks, heart attacks, strokes, childbirth, flooded basements, brush fires, mutual aid, homicides, suicides, you name it. Code 2479 meant “calling hours are from 2 to 4 pm, and 7 to 9.” The adrenaline rush was addictive.

I was the chairperson for the district Board of Ordained Ministry, the first committee beyond a local church were a person begins to explore a potential call to ordained ministry. This was a responsible volunteer job, balancing the reports and responsibilities for about thirty people at a time. The bishop placed me on the Conference Board of Ordained Ministry, a front row seat where all the sausage is made. Who gets in? Who’s in trouble? Who gets their ministerial status changed?

And yet, I wanted more. What about my seminary training and experience at Eastway Community Mental Health (Dayton, Ohio) conducting crisis interventions and psychiatric assessments? Though there was plenty of mental health concerns in the parish, I was wondering what kind of opportunities existed in the community.

A newspaper ad caught my attention. Clifton Springs Hospital and Clinic (CSHC) was looking for part-time Psychiatric Assessment Officers (PAOs). It felt like the heavens opened and the voice of God spoke. It wasn’t about the money; the church was fairly compensating me. My empathy for people suffering mental health crisis ran deep, especially those who faced the challenges of chronic disease. It was more about the thrill of busting into somebody’s mess and being the one to make everything better.

I applied and was hired. After a period of orientation in the day clinic, I was signed up on the rotating call schedule. Every third night between 7:00 pm and 7:00 am, I was the PAO on call for the emergency department. Everyone in psychiatric crisis from a three county area were brought into our ED for assessment. They came by police, ambulance, or they just walked in. Because of my role on the volunteer ambulance, I already knew and liked the ED doctors and nurses, and they liked me. In time, the psychiatrist I worked for grew to know and trust my work. If it was my opinion that a person was in need of involuntary treatment, with the power of a physician’s signature, they were taken away, most often never to be seen by me again. I was in and out of a persons mess in one hour or less; and that was the way I liked it.

Some nights on call, the pager was silent as a stone, and I’d get a good night sleep. Other nights, I’d get called in five or six times. Often, I’d be assessing one patient, or writing up my notes, when another person came in to the ED. In good weather, I loved to zoom in on my Honda CB-750, dressed in leather and helmet. The doctors called it a “donor cycle.” That always made me smile. I didn’t care; I looked and felt bad-assed.

Major depression was probably the most common complaint. A lot of people will have a major depressive episode in their lives, where they might lose weight, inability to sleep, feel long periods of depressed mood, or might have pervasive homicidal or suicidal thoughts. If untreated, depression can become chronic. Note to self: if overwhelmed by depression, get help. Get treated before an episode of depression changes brain chemistry and you’re left with a life-long, chronic disease. Assessment is straight forward. Treatment is effective. Medication and counseling works wonders. And medication is improving all the time.

Five or six major depression assessments in a row tended to make me feel a little depressed myself, so I loved to have the occasional bipolar or schizophrenic patient come along to mix things up. You know, to keep things interesting. Our team and I conducted assessments on children and youth, and elders and the frail. Drugs and alcohol, oh, my, led to substance abuse disorders, self-medicating, and additional poor life choices. The hospital was blessed with an out-patient mental health program, in-patient, a drug and alcohol floor, and even provided electro convulsive therapy (E.C.T.s), an effective and modern treatment for depression. The only mode we had lacking was an in-patient adolescence unit, but then, at that time, few hospitals provided psychiatric care for kids.

My plate was full. In fact, I was juggling a lot of plates. But, for the time being, I was able to keep them all spinning.

38. Gotta Shovel? Bag Pipes and the Motorcycle Clergymen

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

The experience of a snow day through the eyes of a child is awesome. It means a reprieve from school; sleeping in; Flexible Flyer sleds and Norwegian toboggans leaned against the garage; snow angels and evidence of less-than-successful snowman rolling efforts in the front yard; wet coats, hats, and mittens strewn about a home’s entryway; hot cocoa and rosy red cheeks. The State Education Department only allotted a specified number of flexible days that each district could use for snow. Any school district that went over, school days were tacked on at the end of school in June. Nobody wanted that!

The weather forecasters the prior week had been calling for a huge storm this weekend. Well, the cold and snow came to pass. Sixteen inches in my youth would have been a mere flesh wound. Today, it is a snowpocalypses. Everyone and everything shuts down, closes down, doesn’t go in to work. Just another day in Western and Central New York. When I shake my head with disdain, I can’t help but think to myself, “Yes, I have become my father.”

For years we lived within a mile of Lake Ontario. When the forecaster spoke about lake effect snow, we took notice. Fifteen miles away would get a flurry; we’d get two feet. One winter, our driveway had to be plowed out seventeen times. At twenty-five bucks a pop, back in the day, ouch! Snow was expensive. The town highway department would plow the snow back so far, then push the top even further back with an elevated wing, resulting in snowbanks with shelves of layered terraces. Impressive.

Palmyra was a good fifteen miles south of Lake Ontario, but we still received our share of winter punishment from both Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. John Blazey and his wife Alice, were members of the parish. John grew up working long hours to scrape together a living for his wife and family. He welded for the New York Central, the Town and Village. He repaired farm machinery, and sold lawn tractors and implements. In the winter, John would put a plow on his truck and set about plowing out the church and his neighbors. John used to have a wood stove in his store, where friends and neighbors would gather round to shoot the bull and catch up on the community news. For lunch, Alice would set a plate for family and employees of the store. All were welcome around their table.

As a member of the local fire department, we did our best to keep the community safe. There were about forty, or so, active members who kept up our training. I served as a driver (passed the NY State Emergency Vehicle and Pump Operator courses), as the department chaplain, and as a medic on the ambulance. I was getting too old to be going into burning buildings, so I took a pass on keeping up my certification and training for interior firefighting. I never liked heights, so I never qualified on the aerial truck other than as a driver and pump operator. I’ll carry a ladder, put up a ladder, even hold a ladder while someone climbs up or down. But don’t ask me to go up. Heights have never been my friend.

Our volunteer department were a bunch of loveable rugrats. We had all ages; young bucks right out of high school, old dogs with sixty or seventy years of service. We had four officers of each rank: chief, captain, and lieutenant. I was happy not taking a leadership position; the church was enough for me. Training and calls were a great relief, a way to stay in shape, a good social outlet, a wonderful way to keep my hand on the pulse of the community. We had professionals and factory workers, common laborers and union bosses, retired and those still working a regular job, night shift folks and out of towners. Some came for the quarter beers in the soda machine in the truck bay, others for the wild and crazy antics of the younger breed.

Being a volunteer, but highly trained medic on the fire department ambulance, we were always down at the firehouse. We averaged more than a call a day, so there was always something to do: wash a rig, restock inventory, training, delivering oxygen, updating paperwork, getting the oil changed, swapping out batteries, checking expiration dates. 24/7/365 we were on call, prepared for any emergency, be it a jetliner falling from the sky to a call for a back ache from a fall, three weeks earlier.

The county 911 dispatchers were wonderful to us. We got to know them by their voice and tone, their ability to sort sense out of chaos, and their willingness to go the extra mile for a neighbor in need. Every year they were invited to our annual banquet for a free steak dinner and award recognition. We’d get called out in the darkest of nights, in the foulest of weather, on a mutual aid call to a neighboring department that couldn’t raise a crew. Sometimes we’d drive for miles in uncharted territory, guided in by our dispatchers to the proper location.

In later years, our mongrel of a dog got loose one night after a High School Band Concert. I drove around the neighborhood, calling for that miserable dog, listening for any hint of a response. Then, there he was. Lying in the middle of the road, flat as a pancake. I fetched a shovel from the garage and carried his lifeless body back home. The family was sad at his death, but, truth be told, we had only had “Doc” for a year and he just had not fit in.

“911. State your emergency,” the operator spoke back on the phone, his voice sounding suspiciously like the County Fire Coordinator. Could he be taking a shift in the dispatch center? “I called the number for Animal Control. How did I get you?” I asked. “After hours, the call gets routed to the 911 center.” “How can I help you?”

All my fire department and ambulance experience placed a face on the familiar voice. “Rick, is that you?” “Yes, Todd,” he replied, undoubtedly he had all my contact information on the screen in front of him. I told him the tale of woe and how the appropriately licensed family dog had gotten loose and run over in the road. “What should I do,” I asked with the attitude of a good, law abiding citizen wanting to do the right thing and avoid any fines or penalties.

“Well,” Rick replied, both of us knowing full well the call was being recorded, “Do you have a shovel?” “Well, yes.” “How about you go bury him?”

—

The ophthalmologist is still prohibiting me from swimming. There the lap pool sits, silently waiting my return. Hard to believe, but I miss the routine; the locker room, familiar faces of people who share a common journey.

So, it is today 20 laps around the walking track. A mile and a half by my calculations, lost in thought, listening through earbuds to a podcast on politics. As the laps tick by, it is hard for me to think of all the acrimony that comes from the public square.

Families divided by one party or another, one policy or something else, threats and intimidations, quietly pushing mounds of mashed potatoes at family meals because the tension about the table is so thick it could be cut with a knife.

We are not meant to be this way.

When we know each other by name, it becomes much more difficult to demonize each other. When we are curious about each other’s lived experience, meaning and motive become more clear, love and grace become easier to extend, and receive.

My voice is so small, so little, so insignificant. Yet, my voice I raise and join the prophet Micah, “What does the Lord require? To do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God.”

—

Steve replaced Clint as the Presbyterian pastor across the street. Clint would be greatly missed from our breakfast group of community clergy. He and his young adult son (with autism) hand crafted fishing lures and sold them to bait shops in pre-internet days. They found a mutual passion and a means to provide gainful employment for a beloved son. Winners all around. 

Clint moved up to middle management in Presbyterian circles. Steve was his replacement. After a long search committee process, he and his family bought a house in town and moved in. We all came to love Steve and his quiet, reflective approach to circumstances. His congregation was perhaps the most affluent of all the churches. It certainly was larger. Steve was full of surprises.

One summer day, I was enjoying my front porch. A good book and a fine cigar always put me in a contemplative mood. A warm day with cicadas buzzing and a cold glass of diet Coke made it a perfect afternoon. 

The windows of the Presbyterian church across the street were open. I assumed they were open to ensure a flow of fresh air. Steve’s car was parked in the pastor’s designated parking spot in the lot. I knew he was in his office. Emanating from the sanctuary through the open windows came a loud, offensive wail, similar to a pig in heat, though I’ve never heard a pig in heat. The wail certainly impacted the Main Street intersection, and drivers who passed the offensive blast. It varied in frequency and pitch; always grating and painful. 

Over bacon and scrambled eggs the following week I asked our table of ecumenical representatives if anyone knew about the terrible noises coming from the Presbyterian church. No one had a clue. Steve arrived late, hung up his cowboy hat, and joined us at the table. “What’s up with the noise?” I asked. 

A smile and twinkle in his eye worked his timed response just perfectly. “I’ve started taking lessons on the bag pipes, and the sanctuary is the best place to practice,” he informed us. “Great,” I responded with a forced smile. “Hope that works out for you.” My church and parsonage were across the street, directly in the line of fire. All the while, I’m wondering how much I can endure of a student’s bag pipes. 

Besides fitting in well with his Scottish heritage, Steve informed the table of us clergy colleagues that, once he became proficient in “Amazing Grace”, he could sell his services for weddings and funerals at $250 a pop, as opposed to the fifty bucks we’d be lucky to earn from the undertaker, or the hundred bucks we might get from the parents of newlyweds. Bag pipes, vile as piss poured from a boot, paid better than preaching. 

And it was as simple as that.

—

I greatly admired Steve and his odd Presbyterian and Scottish customs. He was slightly older than me, and so were his children. In those days, Chrysler began to manufacturer a new type of vehicle, marketed for families with children. They called it a minivan. Those front wheeled drive beaters served a generation of American families, all the while inhibiting paternal testosterone. Nearly every family had one.

Looking out my office window, I noticed a motorcycle was parked in the pastor’s spot in the Presbyterian parking lot, replacing Steve’s familiar family hauler. I needed a break from my work, so I crossed the street and stopped into his office. “Who parked their motorcycle in your spot?” I inquired with a suspicious eyebrow. 

“That would be mine,” he looked up and grinned. “Get out of town,” I enthusiastically responded. “You got a motorcycle? You got a license?” I was standing in the midst of middle aged manhood, lone defiance to stifling cultural norms, the whole world expecting their pastors to behave in public and wear Hush Puppies. 

Our weekly clergy breakfast table began to be regaled with Steve telling us about his new friendship with his motorcycle mechanic, where he had most recently ridden, what new accessories for his bike he had just purchase from the mail order catalogue. It became too much for me to bear; I just had to have a motorcycle, too. 

The motorcycle bug also bit my Methodist colleague from the next town over. Don was a second career Ordained pastor and a regular at our weekly clergy breakfast table. Don and I both purchased motorcycles on the used market; entry level bikes that we thought would be easy to control. I believe Don had previously held a motorcycle endorsement on his license, so he just had to rebuild muscle memory. I had never had a motorcycle, so I had to start from the beginning. 

In New York State, anyone can get a permit, but one has to pass a written and road test to earn the coveted motorcycle endorsement on their driver’s license. Learning with a permit required that you rode with a licensed partner. “Would you ride with me?” I asked Steve. Of course he would. Presbyterian grace covered Wesleyan circuit riders. 

(It is said Episcopalians went West by Pulman car; Presbyterians came by stage coach; but Methodist won the West on horseback.)

Steve taught me well. In due time, I passed the written test and scheduled my road test. Steve drove his minivan and I followed on my $400 Honda CB750. The road test began at the DMV office at the county seat in Lyons. I was on time and eager to demonstrate my newly obtained two wheeled skills. The rule was that the evaluator would ride with the motorcycle licensed driver in a car, following the student rider, around a pre-defined course. 

The evaluator stormed around the corner and down the sidewalk. His appointment, prior to mine, had nearly killed him. He flunked her and walked back to the office, mad as a hornet. He forced a smile at me as he reviewed my paper work. He took note of Steve’s minivan, came to a stop, and leered over the top of his glasses. “Your test is canceled,” he announced. 

“But why?” We protested. The mini van’s registration was expired. He wasn’t allowed to evaluate a road test from a non-registered motor vehicle. Steve was smooth in his response. “Can you squeeze us in after lunch if we come back with a registered car?” The state evaluator looked at two middle aged Protestant pastors wearing Hush Puppies standing before him. He rolled his eyes and said, “Yes, I’ll see what I can do.” 

“Come with me,” Steve pulled at my elbow. We walked over to the Presbyterian church across the village park. He introduced me to his colleague, a newly installed pastor seated behind her desk. “Can I borrow your car?” She didn’t know us from Adam, but Presbyterians must know each other just by their scent. 

We returned to the DMV road test station with the keys to a brand new car, that was properly registered and inspected. Thank you, Jesus!

Passing the road test and getting my motorcycle endorsement was a piece of cake. Don, Steve, and I rode often together, many times apart. We did hospital calls on our bikes. We even arranged for an annual motorcycle ride fund raiser for the local Habitat for Humanity organization. Hot summer mornings, we three would pull into the diner together for our weekly clergy breakfast. 

One Fall Saturday, Steve was pulled over by the local constable for exceeding the posted speed limit. He reported the officer scanned his paperwork and asked him why he was going so fast through town. Steve sat on his bike and thought. He told the cop that he was the Presbyterian minister in town (obviously lobbying for sympathy and leniency) and that he was late for a wedding. Or funeral. Or, whatever ministers rush to.  

“Say, I’ve heard about you,” the village police officer replied. “You’re one of three preachers in town who just got their motorcycle licenses, aren’t you?” “Yep,” Steve reported he replied. “My Methodist colleagues, Don and Todd, also ride bikes with me.” Cool beans, the officer thought, and let Steve off the hook with a warning.

Ten minutes later, while the cop dozed behind the wheel at his speed trap, another motorcyclist speeds past. Officer friendly responds with lights and siren, pulling over the offender with haste. The motorcyclist removed his helmet and opened his jacket, exposing a clerical collar. With no time to call in his traffic stop, the cop walked up to the motorcyclist dressed in a collar and asked, “Just who in the hell do you think you are speeding through my town? Are you Don or Todd?”

Don reported his eyes grew wide at the apparent divine clairvoyance by the officer of the law, knowing without checking, the perpetrator of his near felonious offense. Don confessed his sin and disclosed his identity. “But, how did you know it was me?” He asked. 

“Because I just got done pulling over your buddy, Steve.”

And thus began the lore and oft repeated and exaggerated tale of the great clergy motorcycle caper.  

More than friends; closer than blood; God knows how much I loved my clergy colleagues. Our breakfasts were sacred; sacramental I’d suggest. Our love, eternal. Thank you, Lord.

“Could you please pass the Tabasco?”

Post Script: Don died this past year, his struggles with disease ended. The world is at a loss without him. We all miss him. Until we see each other once again, rest in peace, dear friend. Rest in peace.

36. A Church on Every Corner, A Bar on Every Block – Poop, Pee, Vomit, and Blood

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

Palmyra is known for being the birthplace of Mormonism, the cult of Joseph Smith, and I was appointed to serve the local United Methodist parish. It is the only place in North America, I was told with hometown pride, that sported four churches on four corners. Mine was on the northwest corner. If asked which steeple was taller, I’d make the claim that ours was six inches taller than the others. True, or not? I don’t know, but it always made me laugh. 

While there was a church on every corner, there was also a bar on nearly every block. From fire and EMS calls, I’d come to know each of our watering holes, and those who frequented them, like the back of my hand. Palmyra was on the original Erie Canal. Booze, drinking, and fighting were central to life on the canal, a legacy that continues to this day.

Cannon Hill was so named because when the canal opened in 1825 a cannon was fired from the modest peak; one of a long string of celebratory cannons fired in succession from Manhattan to Buffalo. A hundred years later, the outdated canal was updated to the Barge Canal, which is still in operation, more so for pleasure boating than commerce. When the New York Central came through town, commerce transferred from canal boat to the high iron. 

In the center of town there was an iron flag pole, nearly a hundred feet high. We often trained on it with the aerial platform from the fire department. The pole had a patriotic history, but was tarnished with drunken and suicidal opportunist. Many a crowd I witnessed at its base, encouraging one to jump. Not a good look by the Chamber of Commerce. Eventually, village leaders welded steel plates to restrict access. Too many horses had already fled the barn. At least progress was being made. 

The church building was built of similar red brick architecture as other churches across upstate New York, two towers in front, with a tall steeple capping the one over the entrance. It was fun to climb the hidden access, circular staircase up the one tower, cross over the sanctuary rafters to the steepled tower, then climb ladders up to the bell. From this pigeon poop encrusted lair, one could look straight down Main Street, State Route 31, both East and West, and down Route 21 to the South and Division Street over the canal to the North. It was always peaceful and calm high above the village below. 

The sanctuary was modernized, everything was able to be repositioned. Worship in the round? No problem. Traditional back to front? Many hands make light work. Even the (expensive to maintain) pipe organ was connected by an electrical umbilical cord such that the console could be relocated to an ideal location. Cool beans. 

We were blessed with great people and families in Palmyra, though my volunteer team of church leaders didn’t always agree or get along. We held it together for eight years, a good run for any pastor and parish, ending with as many people in worship as when I started. Maintaining worship attendance was a win in the 1990’s when all the world was idolizing church growth and the mega church phenomena. Even then, mainline Protestant churches were in decline. The director of the New York State Council of Churches at that time described the religious environment as “an angry electorate,” and that the people in our pews were a reflection of the larger community. What did grow during my tenure was the endowment, more than tenfold, due to some very generous members of the parish and intensive efforts to provide exceptional pastoral care.  

From my prior experience assisting a capital fund drive and from my work in Palmyra, I learned that giving begins and ends with relationships. A cold solicitation rarely produces fruit. Making friends, developing friendships, building trust, showing oneself dependable, sharing trials and tribulations, mutually enjoying the joys of life’s success, traveling the journey of life together; this is the successful recipe for developing a culture of generosity. There are no shortcuts. 

—

The pool this morning didn’t happen. My shoulders and neck have been stiff and painful all week. Range of motion is suffering. The thought of fifteen laps of crawl stroke is a non-starter. 

“If it hurts, Don’t do it,” is common medical advice that gives me cover to take a day off. Maybe if I let my body rest and heal? That’s it! That’s the ticket; but, when presented to my wife, the medical professional in our household, I get the stern look out of the top of her eyes. 

“Have you called the doctor?” 

“No.”

“Why not?”

We’ve been through this a thousand times before. We both know the script. “I hate to waste money only to be told there isn’t anything more that can be done other than Tylenol and rest.” No one needs a medical degree for acetaminophen and bed rest.

“But, maybe it is something else.” (Pause for effect) “If you’re not feeling better by next week, will you call the doctor?” 

“Okay,” I concede, defeated by my aging body and prideful mind. 

—

The village fire department was one of the larger ones in Wayne County. We had about forty active volunteers, three pumpers, a brush truck, rescue truck, and aerial platform. Though we had no paid firefighters, lots of young bucks would hang out at the station just waiting for calls, watching television, or wasting time on video games. Training was held every Thursday evening and Sunday morning. Each volunteer was required to attend and participate in a certain number of yearly training sessions to keep in good standing.

I was warmly welcomed; after all, I had experience as a driver, pump operator, interior firefighter, and chaplain (though I was happy to yield my interior firefighting skills to younger and stronger members of the department). It didn’t take long before I was elected President of the company, a non-line officer. I was not elected to be a firefighting officer, like one of the four chiefs, captains, and lieutenants. They got radios, colored helmets, and red lights and sirens for their personal vehicles. My responsibilities were purely social, raising money, renting the hall, bringing in new members, sending cards and flowers, ensuring the beer machine and bar was stocked.

We also had two ambulances. We were a mixed department, running both fire and EMS calls. We were called the Oxygen Squad from the days when we supplied Oxygen dependent residents with free tanks of pressurized gas from a cascade system installed at the fire hall. We took care to ensure people had an uninterrupted supply of this life essential commodity.

I was intrigued. 

Did I have the chops to learn how to take a blood pressure? Start an IV? Save a stabbing victim? Did I have the stomach to deal in the industry of mayhem and death? My wife was a labor and delivery nurse. She spoke the language of medicine and knew the difference between proximal and distal. My dad had served as a navy medic during World War Two, training and serving to do some of the most horrific tasks known to human kind. If dad could do it, well. So could I. I signed up to take the Emergency Medical Technician course, offered for free by the State of New York, to become an entry level medic on our fire department ambulance. 

Our emergency medical services, essentially rescue, first aid, and transport to the local hospital, was a community service handed over from local undertakers, fifty years earlier. We were dispatched three times more for EMS than for fire or rescue calls. My highest year, I ran 325 EMS calls; I would guess, that averages to about three hours a day. A rival, competitive not-for-profit ambulance also ran in town, but their availability and quality suffered. Today, both services have quit the field to for-profit ambulance companies. At least modernization has given some of the young bucks a job and a paycheck. 

There was a lot to learn.

The course was long and thorough, covering everything from trauma to medical emergencies, helicopter transport, to the jaws of life. From birth to death, from the time a call is dispatched to when you call the rig back in service. Just about everything that can happen is covered. Law, consent, ethics, mass casualties, heart attacks, strokes, burns, amputations, weather disasters. You name it. We even learned were the best donut and coffee shops were located between the hospital and station.

The course ran twice a week for six months. Reading and comprehension before every class was essential. Lectures by senior instructors, doctors, and nurses were common. Time had to be spent with experienced, senior medics answering calls. We had weekly tests, final test, and a practical exam at the end. The wash out rate was pretty high.

I strived for perfection. I was scared half to death that the one answer I got wrong could result in the injury of death of someone. The responsibility that came with the credentials and patch weighed heavily on me. Rookie medics need not worry, for within our squad, outside of the class, we were paired up with veterans and taught the ropes. 

Poop. Pee. Vomit. Blood. These were the essential body fluids that defined many calls. Brains, too; they became fluid if dropped from sufficient height. Can’t forget the calls that involved brains. The more common body fluids were also the means to break in the new medics, present company included. Could I do what had to be done without being sick myself? Only time would tell. 

One rite of passage for new medics was when a patient had to be fully immobilized. This was to protect the head, neck, and spine from further injury. This was the result of motor vehicle collisions, falls, and other traumatic incidences. Head stabilized. Check. C-collar, used to immobilize the head and neck, sized and fitted. Check. Patient fixed to a rigid back board to protect the spine. All check. A good evolution results in a patient hog tied and gussied up like a thanksgiving turkey, fully unable to protect their own airway. 

And then, there is the meal they ate right before becoming my injured patient. Three tacos covered in jalapenos. All you can eat pasta buffet. Burgers, fries, and chocolate milkshakes. Lying flat and strapped to a stretcher in the back of a moving ambulance. On a warm summer night. You get the picture. It doesn’t take long for one to start to get that Pepto feeling. 

Pro tip: aggressively open windows, crank vent fans on high, and turn the air conditioning up to 10. Pro experience, learned in the heat of the call: despite the best efforts to reduce a patient’s nausea, sometimes what went down is bound to come up.

Both veteran and rookie medics sit on side benches, flanking the patient, hog tied and strapped down to the rigid back board. The veteran medic, learned by fire and experience, knows to aggressively unstrap, lift, and tilt the back board on its side, allowing the immobile patient to let gravity clear their airway. Tip it away and all the productive content, if aimed correctly, coats the rookie medic with a baptism of all things holy, head to toe. It happened to me; in turn, I passed on this sacred tradition to those who followed in my footsteps. It isn’t pretty. It’s not a nice thing to do. But it was our rite of passage.

Remember your baptism, and be thankful.

—

Before leaving my student church in Ohio, the congregation had a celebration for me. One gift I received was from my senior pastor, Nunzio Donald Catrone. The gift was a blank book titled “Pastoral Record.” It’s significance didn’t register in 1986, but as years began to accumulate, the pages became filled with names, dates, and significant notations. Baptisms, marriages, and deaths each have a section.

For the past week I’ve been thinking about Francis. Her entry in my Pastoral Record is January 11, 1996.

Francis was a member of my congregation in Palmyra. She was widowed perhaps fifteen years prior to my arrival. She was proud of her marriage, though their love never produced any children. Her husband had been the village postmaster and a faithful Episcopalian. She was a Methodist, and proud of her independence. Her house was on top of Cannon Hill, a house at the end of the street, the backyard sloped down to the original Erie Canal (in the foreground) and the Barge Canal, a hundred yards beyond.

Children in the neighborhood avoided Francis and her home. Mrs. B was thought to be a witch, ogre, or some other monster who feasted on the unsuspecting child who was caught crossing her yard or peeking in her window. Francis attended church every week, sat front and center, and took in every word of my sermons. She especially loved Summer worship. Bring a folding lawn chair on Sunday evenings; I’ll provide the lemonade. Age compressed her bones and joints, losing her six inches, or so. Francis was being doctored for a heart condition.

It was so enjoyable to stop by and visit on hot summer afternoons. Francis would serve me tea under a tree in her back yard. The flies would be buzzing. People passed, walking the canal path down below us. Time slowed. We’d talk about the past, my most recent sermon, faith, hopes, and fears. Though she was a woman of strong faith, she, like most of us, also had her fears.

Living alone, she feared calling for help, if and when the time came that she found herself in distress. She had a scanner, like most residents in the village, that monitored the fire and ambulance frequencies. Scanners were the source of gossip and juicy speculation. Though we had codes for many circumstances, mostly we spoke on the radio in plain English. She was modest and didn’t want her name and address broadcast publicly for all the world to hear.

Over the course of five years I received her call numerous times in the dead of night. “Pastor Todd, can you come,” she whispered. “Did you call 911?” I’d ask, rubbing the dirt from my eyes, according to our well-worn script. “No, I don’t want to start any trouble.”

“Any chest pains or trouble breathing?” Her answer was always a resounding “Yes! I can’t hardly breath,” she’d say. I could almost see her squirming. “I’ll be right over.”    

A quick-to-don pair of coveralls hung from the closet door next to the bed. Shoes and my department cap, and I was out the door. My Ford Ranger carried a small Oxygen tank, a manual defibrillator, a first aid kit, and my radio. My call sign was Palmyra 14-15. “Fire Control, this is Palmyra 14-15. Dispatch my rig to this address for chest pains and trouble breathing.” The three minute head start would give me precious time to make a thorough assessment of Francis before my crew arrived with the ambulance.

Time and again, we’d take Francis to the hospital to have her stabilized, admitted, healed, and discharged. Each time her heart grew weaker and weaker.

Calls taking Francis to the hospital in the middle of the night were special. I did what needed to be done; repeat vitals, heart monitored, high flow Oxygen, IV started (I had since taken advanced courses and certifications), and, if needed, called for a higher trained medic (to pass medication) to intercept us during transit (though protocol called for the request, a higher level of care in the field was rarely needed). When completed, I turned the lights down low, tucked her in, and held her hand. I’d pray with her; we prayed that the current crisis and pain would end, for diagnostic clarity for the doctor, for compassion for her bedside caregivers, to safely return home.

Francis liked that I prayed with her and for her.  

“Pastor Todd, could you stop by the house this week sometime?” she called. “Yes, of course.” Tea beneath the tree was always a happy place for the both of us.

“My doctor wants me to have open heart surgery,” she stated matter of factly. “Split me right down the middle.” She paused, biting her lower lip. “I thought I’d run it by you. What do you think?” she asked.

Time slowed like molasses in wintertime. What did I think? I’m just a medic on the ambulance. I don’t know about such things, I thought to myself.

Except… Except that I was Francis’s pastor. I did know a little something about faith, life, death, and eternal life. I knew Francis, her life, her passions, her love, her wishes. She and I shared a sacred place between us. We truly loved each other, as only a pastor can love, like a sister or a child, as a shepherd and a sheep.

As we talked, listing pros and cons, discussing risks and rewards, Francis found herself coming to the conclusion that she would have the surgery. We prayed together. The date and time were set. I met her at the regional cardiac surgery hospital as she was being prepped. “You sure you want this?” I asked, holding her hand. She looked so small in the oversized hospital bed. “Yes,” she said, “I’m ready.”

Those were the last words I heard Francis speak.

She became one of those far too frequent individuals who the doctor would proclaim “the surgery was successful,” but they lost the patient. She was splayed like the crucified Christ, being kept alive by artificial respirator, drugs, and fluids. No family; I was alone by her side.

I cried.

For years I felt the guilt of talking her into a surgery that she would not survive. In time, the guilt dissipated. Acceptance has taken its place. As her wounds have healed her into eternal life, so, too, have I been healed from the regret, mourning, and loss of a dear friend and parishioner. God shared Francis with me, for a time. When that time was up, that was it. God led her home. I can now see how Francis was God’s gift of grace to this simple parish pastor.  

A number of months later, the church received in the mail a letter from her estate lawyer, a copy of the will, and the largest check I had ever seen with my eyes. Amazing grace. I’ve heard the sound.

32. What Parents and a Parish Teaches

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

Rural Yates County was the perfect place to begin my parish ministry. The people are salt of the earth, hardworking, generous above and beyond expectations. Faith runs deep. I had much to learn. 

Elderly residents of the local nursing home had much to teach me. I took my turn in the cue of pastors from nearby churches providing worship services on Sunday afternoon. Every six or eight weeks was my turn in the barrel. I quickly learned to bring my choir from Dresden. The overly sedated, room full of residents, dozing in Gerry-chairs were largely unresponsive to my skillfully crafted academic sermon of the day. When the choir began to sing one of the familiar gospel songs, everyone would perk up and began to sing. As soon as the song was complete and I began to speak again, everyone fell back asleep. 

I’ll take my humble pie with a slice of cheese, please.

An invitation came in soon after we moved in to join the Lectionary study group of United Methodist pastors that convened once a week in Geneva. Charlie Hess (who won the fishing boat in the Roman Catholic raffle, and refused to honor the Social Principles about gambling by giving it back) was the host pastor.

Sam Davis, smart as a tack, joined us from Seneca Falls. He never met a sugar donut he couldn’t resist, and ended up wearing powdered sugar all over his face and shirt. Gary Hakes hailed from Phelps, the father of one of my fishing camp nippers, and chair of the local chapter of Planned Parenthood. Progressive; my kind of guy. And Steve Parr, a long suffering elder serving a rural parish on the other side of the county, whose wife was the chaplain at the local private college. Steve was frugal, to the point of buying donuts in quantity from the local wholesaler then freezing them in his freezer. Instead of buying donuts from the local donut shoppe, he’d bring in frozen, sugar coated  pucks in a zip locked bag. Gotta love him.

The first morning I attended, I showed up with a stack of academic Biblical reference books and commentaries. Everyone burst out laughing. Sam Davis, a graduate of University of Chicago, was impressed. The next week, I bought the donuts.

The Lectionary study group taught me the value of peer fellowship, support, and humor. Life in the trenches of a Parish Pastor is rough, filled with huge doses of both laughter and tears. We were five white, privileged pastors dressed in Hush Puppies, raising families, juggling demands, and doing the best we could with what we had. With little supervision, we functioned as an accountable discipleship group. Our friendship lasted all lifelong. They are all gone now; I’m the last one standing. I smile with the warm memories of these giants in my life, gently guiding me through the challenges of Ordained Ministry. 

I learned much from the local undertakers.

Bruce owned one funeral home uptown in Penn Yan; Steve owned the other. The competition was friendly. Bruce served on the leadership team of a nearby United Methodist parish and he liked to gripe to me about the conference, Bishop, and denomination. He was also the source of much parish gossip: “I saw so and so at the pharmacy the other day. She was checking out with cart full of lubricating jell and weight loss supplements.”

Five minutes before one funeral, Bruce showed me a letter of complaint he sent to the bishop, claiming his pastor was engaged in inappropriate behavior. “What are you going to do about it,” he asked, the veins bulging from his temples and neck. “Well, nothing,” I replied, “because I have a funeral service to start.” 

Often the best response is a smile and silence. 

—

I couldn’t go to the pool this morning because a new clothing drying was being delivered. The old one stopped working after three years. Two hundred dollars for a repair man to assess the problem, then more to commence repairs, or, for a few dollars more, get a scratch-n-dent floor model replacement. I hate planned obsolescence and American consumerism. 

Two days ago I hit the pool for the first time in two weeks. We had traveled to the far coast to visit family. Cynthia and I took our time out and back, riding the train to take in all the scenery of our great land. Time with my brother and his family was priceless, much more fulfilling now that we are all retired. 

The water was cold and I doubted if I could swim hard for a full fifteen laps. But, I did. My arms and shoulders pulled at the water, pushing it behind, as my brain was lost in thought attempting to process all the conversations I had with family. 

What was the meaning of my (our) father’s early death? Does death have to have meaning? What about my (our) mother, living more than thirty years after dad died? That is a long time to be alone.

Our mother was a strong woman, I thought as I swam. She grew up in an orphanage, became the cutout for Rosy the Riveter, married dad after he returned from the Pacific, raised four children, followed Jesus and lived her life accordingly. When he died, she had to learn to make due on her own, balance a check book, return to driving, living independently. She did so with grace and humility. Mom died after nearly twenty years of Alzheimer’s in a nursing home at the height of COVID. Mom deserved better than me telling her that I loved her over the telephone while she took her final breaths.

My mother had taught me so much. Love. Faith. Grit. Hard work. And apple pies. Rare was the pie she didn’t give away to someone in need or from Dad’s parish or to a neighbor going through tough times. But every now and then, one of her pies were made just for us. 

—

The day was April 15th, a day made memorial by the Internal Revenue Service. In the dark of the early morning, the Plectron fired off the alarm to our volunteer fire department. Barn fire, at the cross roads of City Hill and Ridge. I jumped out of bed, stepped into my coveralls and shoes, and took off for the fire house, across the street and through two back yards. It was always a foot race to see who could get there first, Bill or me, my trusty church lay leader and friend. 

In the pre-dawn light I could see the mushroom cloud of a burning barn as I ran for the pumper. A barn to most of us is the image of rural life, a character from a Norman Rockwell painting, a calendar picture inviting us back to a simpler more wholesome time.

To a farmer, a barn is the center of a small business, generating income, often in competition with mounting expenses. A barn is a milking parlor, a hay mound, a storage space protected from wet elements. It houses valuable farm machinery, is home to cattle, a neighbor to a silo holding grain or chopped corn, and a place for kids to play.

This barn belonged to one of my church families. 

The string of pumpers, tankers, and the rescue truck snaked out of town, uphill in every direction. The water haulers carried a thousand or more gallons of water because only city people had hydrants. I drove the lead pumper, having won the foot race. Next to me was another volunteer, dressing and strapping in to his bunker gear to protect him from flame and heat.

The radio squawk from the chief, another one of my church leaders, now on scene in his personal vehicle, asking for mutual aid from at least ten neighboring fire departments. Barn fires needed a lot of water quickly. I feared this one was already beyond saving. 

I pulled into the farm yard to find the family and our chief frantically getting livestock and machinery out of the infernal. I had never seen a fire so large and frightening. “Oh Lord,” I prayed to myself, “don’t let me goof up.”

Tank-to-Pump lever; pulled. Pump primed. Hose lines laid and charged. Water flowing. Hard suction connected to the pump and pounded tight with a rubber mallet. Portable pond set up. Tankers from other departments arriving, waiting their turn to replenish the pond as fast as my pump would drain it. Sweat dripping in my eyes, tears for the family welling up in my eyes. 

My chief, Charlie, came over and looked me in the eye. “Todd,” he said somberly, “let someone else relieve you from the pumper. The family needs to see you inside the house.”

And so, the other shoe was about to drop. 

Around the dining room table sat Mom and dad, son and daughter, and a deputy sheriff. Eyes were down, the room was silent, the coffee pot announced a fresh pot was brewed. “Pastor Todd,” Mom said when she saw me, “come in and have a cup of coffee.” Mom was also a leader in my parish, a woman of strong faith, accustomed to hard work on the farm. 

The Sheriff asked the father about the farm and possible causes of the fire. Yes, there was electricity to the barn to run the lights and compressor for the milking machine. But he didn’t suspect there was a problem with the power. The night was clear so a lightning strike was doubtful. Dad truly had not a clue as to what may have started the barn fire. 

I sat waiting for divine inspiration. 

“Yesterday afternoon,” the son began speaking barely above a whisper, “my friend and I were playing in the barn. Just fooling around. We didn’t mean nothing. We got some matches and made a little fire. It didn’t get too big and we thought we put it out.”

The silence that followed was deafening. The guilt that descended was overwhelming. “I did it,” the young boy screamed, “but I didn’t mean to do it.” Tears burst the flood gate and he ran bawling to his room. The rest of us sat stunned in silence. 

“What do you want to do?” the deputy asked gently. All of us were thinking of legal actions, loss, and grief. All of us, except for dad. 

“When I was young,” dad began, “about the age of my son today, I, too, accidently burned down my Daddy’s barn. It was an accident. I knew, but no one else did. It’s been my secret these past forty years and it has always weighed heavy on my heart.” 

I thought of Christ on the cross, dying for our redemption. 

“The one person,” I carefully began, “who needs to hear your confession, is your son crying in his room.” 

The pause was pregnant. “You’re right, Pastor.” Dad pushed away from the table. “I gotta do what’s right.” Dad left us in the kitchen and went in to console and confess his sin to his son. 

That was a morning nearly forty years ago. It was a day in the life of this parish pastor where I learned about redemption, the depth of love Christ has for each of us, and the depth of love a father had for his son. 

30. The Post Office, Conflict, Voting, and Emergency Surgery

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

Life serving a small parish was good. Expectations were low, so it was easy to excel.

Mornings were spent in the church office. There was no heat. In fact there was no office. I simply made space for myself out of a large closet and had moved in a glass top antique desk. When the temperature dropped below freezing, my hand would stick to the glass. Parishioners took pity on me, even thought they wondered what I was doing in the church building every morning. Someone kindly provided a kerosene heater. 

Each morning the mail would come in at the post office around 10 am. It was a social event, where I could catch up with everything happening in the neighborhood. While the post mistress filled each box, about ten women and I waited intently for each mailbox to be filled. Each had a husband or a live-in man who worked out of town. My neighbor, George, and I were often the only men in the village between 7 am and 5 pm. 

One morning I went to fetch my mail, waited patiently for my mailbox to be filled, opened the locked door, and removed the contents. Everyone in that cramped, little post office looked at me, at the mail in my hand, and had a panic look of a deer in headlights bug eyes. “Oh, my,” I thought to myself. “What did I do now?”

On top of my stack of mail, in plain sight for all to see, was a pornographic magazine; not one that could be described as soft, filled with worthwhile articles, so said every male who nervously turned every page. No, it was a raunchy magazine, the kind that was mailed in a protective, tinted plastic sleeve. 

“It isn’t mine,” I protested, turning every shade of red. Snickers abounded.

I took it to the window, behind which the post mistress held court. “Oh,” she said, looking over her cat glasses that sported a silver chain drooped around her neck. “I must have put it into the wrong mailbox.” She promptly slid the offending item into the post office box right above mine. We all knew who owned that box. 

A year or two later, I conducted the funeral of said mailbox owner. He had been one of the last blacksmiths before hiring on to work the coal piles at the Greenidge electrical generation power station. Covered with coal dust, I could only see the white of his eyes when I’d see him after his work. Laying peacefully in his casket, I trusted that he was now at peace at home with his God. 

—

The pool this morning was all business. Get in, get it on, get it over with. My thoughts churned with my flailing crawl. I had been recent witness to a sudden, emotionally charged, vulgar laced slur that took everyone in the room by surprise. It was defensive, instinctual, verbal violence meant to hurt and to harm. 

Others responded with tempered defense, while my broken heart filled with empathy for the one who took the unwarranted brunt of the offense. How one responds to such harm defines character and spiritual wellness. 

Now there is something to focus on, as the laps churned away, the cool morning water providing me with a sense of balance and support. Character. Spiritual wellness.

No, I do not like conflict. Most people don’t, with the exception of lawyers. But I’ve learned with time and experience that conflict is best dealt with immediately, with confidence, and kindness.

Delay results in retrenchment, resentment, and deepening malaise. My response should be balanced with love and insight regarding motives of those involved. Is someone’s anger coming from a childhood experience, from demons of addiction, from anxiety over marriage, children, or employment? Is their outlash the result of an untreated mental health condition? Sometimes it is as simple as their dog biting them in the butt as they went out the door that morning on the way to work. 

I can’t take away the anger and hurt of this world. But my faith, in the God of my experience and understanding, is able to work a healing balm into every broken soul. 

The soap and hot shower after my laps this morning cleansed my body of the pool’s chlorine and brought restoration.

—

One church in town. One cemetery. One  village, I paternalistically considered my own. It was a privilege to be with my people in their disease and death, connected with family and ancestors that had gone on before them. Many were the graves at which I stood, leading prayers of reluctant release from this mortal life into the hands of our eternal God. 

Graves trembled with each passing coal train that fed Greenidge’s boiler, generating electrical power to homes throughout the Finger Lakes. Skiffs transported employees and navy personnel to and from the barge anchored in the center of Seneca Lake conducting top secret research. School busses picked up and dropped off children as they went to and from school up town in Penn Yan. The hotel served up game dinners for hunters and served cold beer to a sublime cliental. 

The local town offices were shared with the highway department and a substation for the State Police. My wife and I presented ourselves to vote before election officials. “Last name, please,” as if they didn’t know the new preacher in town. Out was hauled a large binder of registered voters. “I can’t seem to find you here,” she said, as she licked her finger and leafed through the pages. “You are registered Republican, aren’t you?”

The room fell silent. All eyes were on Cynthia and me. 

“Um. No,” I confessed. “We are registered Democrats.” 

“Oh,” she sighed as she pulled out a one page list from a file folder. “Here you are,” she smiled weakly. We cast our votes with humility, having learned our lesson in small town life. 

The women in town were strong and formidable. They worked the vines for the exploding New York wine industry, trimming with both hands in the cold of winter. They worked chores on dairy farms along with the men, milking cows 365 days a year. Never a day of rest.

Women buried their dead husbands and lovers, who died an early cancerous death as a result of working the coal plant. One tended her husband’s home dialysis, another a loving, devoted caregiver for her husband with Parkinson’s. Yet another stood by her man, even when her man proved unworthy of her faithful love. One woman aged gracefully with her retired husband, another spent her time baking the most delicious Danish pastries to be shared with neighbors (and the occasional visit by her pastor). 

Neither did I find any slackers among the men in town. Salt of the earth. Hard workers. Raising their families as best as they knew how. Oh, there were some exceptions, but they were rare.

The men in town were interesting characters. Those who displayed odd behaviors or a peculiar character added color to an otherwise drab environment. One played the marimba every Memorial Day at church, while another arranged for a high school senior to recite the Gettysburg Address. I discovered one dancing with a tree in his front yard, as I walked home after a late night church meeting. No, I did not suspect he was under the influence. That is just the way he was; happy to dosey doe with a Dogwood.

Conflict was rare. It was a thankful reprieve from future experiences. One couple thought I wasn’t sufficiently conservative in my interpretation of the Bible that they sat disapprovingly in their pew with arms crossed and scowls on their face. I would not apologize for emphasizing grace over judgment or love over law. I let Jesus do the talking for me. 

Sunday morning was chilly and snow swept as I headed out for worship at the other church of my appointment, a tiny church that sat in the middle of a cornfield at the intersection of a former stage coach stop. Reluctantly, I left Cynthia behind with our newborn son, Nicholas, who had been up all night crying and vomiting. The doctor up town agreed to open up his office and see them as soon as they could get there. Our neighbor, George, offered to go with  them to the doctor. Off we went our separate ways. 

After the early worship service, I returned to town. Time was of the essence, especially if delayed by a slow, rumbling coal train that blocked entry into the village. I quickly parked in my reserved spot and entered the church office to don my white clerical apparel. Just in time, I processed into the sanctuary to organ music and an assembling crowd speaking to one another in low murmurs. I took my seat up front, behind the pulpit and altar table. As the organ played, I closed my eyes attempting to center myself, and pray that Nicholas was okay. 

Serenity was broken as one of my Trustees (and fire chief) approached my chair. He leaned over and whispered in my ear. “George just went with Cynthia and Nicholas to the hospital in Geneva for emergency surgery. What do you want to do?” He asked. “I can take you to the hospital, if you want.”

“Yes, please,” was all I could weakly reply. 

I gathered my six page, double spaced, typed sermon and handed it off to my lay leader to read in my absence. Off we went. Buckled in. Lights and siren weren’t needed due to it being Sunday morning. Kindness. Appreciated beyond words. Thank you, Lord, for the kindness of a Parish who loved me back and a Trustee who delivered me to the hospital waiting room. 

A quick hernia repair and a short hospital stay averted catastrophe, and we returned home. Healed. Whole. Thankful.