No hint of judgment. No hint of pity.
Just eyes full of compassion.
My eyes welled up as I took in this stranger's words.
Oh how quickly my hurt, anger, and bitterness dissipated.
It was a chance meeting. I simply followed a friend who wanted to see a free documentary about a hospice in Scotland that was offering a type of palliative care unlike many we see around here. I didn't think I could relate to the film until a panel took form on stage after the showing. One of the panelists was the chair of Psycho-social Oncology and Palliative Care at the Cancer Institute here. As he spoke on his area of research, which was the ways in which doctors had conversations with patients diagnosed with terminal illnesses, my ears perked up and I sat up in my seat.
Suddenly I was back in that tiny office in Dallas with my dad. His young oncologist nonchalantly responds that dad's sickness has gone into his bones and that "of course" it was stage 4. My fingers clench the bottom of my seat and I quickly excuse myself from the office to cry silently in the parking lot. I'm angry and hurt--what does this doctor know about this magnificent man sitting before him? I grow embittered by his callous response, leaving no room for forgiveness--for the possibility of his own detachment from patients as a protective measure for his own heart in this field of oncology.
It would be a year and a half later in Boston where I would finally be able to forgive and let go. I awkwardly stood around the refreshment table waiting for him to appear from the theater doors and grew disheartened when he was quickly approached by several guests, one clearly going on about her own stories. He spots me waiting nervously and eventually politely cuts off the lady to approach me. I had plenty of time to rehearse my questions for this very busy man, but the minute he thanks me for waiting, my words spill out into a messy puddle. My awful visit to the oncologist, my fear of switching doctors, my frustration at the callous insensitivity we received, my tears that afternoon.
"Oh. I'm so sorry."
At that moment, I knew that God brought me to hear those words for a reason. There was a man I needed to forgive, and I was going to hear the apology from a fellow physician states away. There is no connection between the two men, This man before me had nothing to do with the hurt and frustration that I experienced back in Dallas. And yet, his words would heal me. And it would be more than enough.
Thank you, Dr. James Tulsky.
Thank you for your research.
Thank you for your kindness.
Thank you for seeing the hurting person in me.
Thank you Lord for knowing the deepest depths of my heart and for freeing me each day. Thank you once again for your divine appointments.
