My plan for travel to Philly for chaplaincy training relies on public transportation. The train, which is free for oldies like me, is reliable and direct. It will take less time than driving, and the hassle of parking in the city is moot. But my first shift fell on Sunday morning, and the choices for trains were limited, so I prepared to take a car. 

 

I have what a friend calls her Cinderella license, meaning I prefer not to go out after dark. Still I wanted to get to the first session more than I wanted to avoid driving before the sun rose. As it happened, the skies were crying that morning, so I had a second cause to be nervous. But for reasons I cannot articulate, I wasn't. 

 

I arrived to follow along, or rather chase after the chaplain on duty that day, twenty minutes early. He met me in the lobby and took me to the pastoral office, where he introduced me to the night chaplain just finishing her shift. Her name was even Florence, as in Nightingale. He showed me the ER, the private rooms for consultations, and the various floors of patients. He only stopped talking when he logged on to computers around the hospital to document interactions with patients, and we only stopped walking for those brief interludes as well. I tried to absorb a cascade of details about the pager I would carry around, the codes for medical events, and the format for writing in the journal. It was a lot. 

 

Yet it was somehow disappointing. I had expectations of long visits with people who were overwhelmed and needing support. Yet of the patients we found, some were asleep, others were intubated, others were surrounded by nurses, and one was discharged. One woman was contentedly awaiting her paperwork, and my mentor chatted with her about the circumstances that landed her here. We did visit the family of a woman who is on life support as they cried around her bedside, and perhaps eased their burden. 

 

But it was all less impactful than my inflated imagination had predicted. I felt like a child who had finished her first piano lesson, deflated to not be playing Rachmaninoff. 

 

It was inevitable, I suppose. Understanding that my part in this network of caregivers is small, is part of the process. But perhaps over the four months of training I will progress to the level of playing Jingle Bells. Even a small contribution can be beautiful.