Grief Fatigue.

Protecting our humanity, no matter the cost

Photo by Piron Guillaume on Unsplash

There are times when the aches of sadness cease

And weary ears become complacent to the surrounding noise

Slowly fading further and further into the background

Until cries and groans become little more than distant whispers.

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There are times when the eyes have seen too much

And the ducts that once produced rivers of tears

Are left barren and bone-dry

Until they become glassy and distant, staring off into the distance for even a moment of reprieve.

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There are times when pain feels like an all-too-familiar neighbor

And its presence no longer surprises, in fact, it’s expected

So on life goes, in repetitive circles while the pain festers underneath layers of flesh and bone.

Until it surfaces.

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I call it grief fatigue. The body’s self-protecting method of distancing itself from agony to preserve a sense of wholeness. When the cup of compassion runs dry and the hands that once opened to hold another’s are rigid and closed, the joints locked and arthritic.

I’ve seen it in the faces of many nurses and aides who have witnessed too much death and dying, desperately attempting to hide it away, escape the sobering residence of fate, pass on the weighty baton of morality.

I’ve seen it in them.

I’ve seen it in me.

It’s shocking when it comes. Sad, really. Realizing the very humanity that once brought connection and healing to others is now the very thing pulling away, retreating within the beating of its own heart.

The human soul can only carry so much.

If death were natural, there would be no eulogies. No tears. No processions. No remembrances. No point.

But death is anything but natural. And so we mourn. We embody grief and stories. And moments and songs. And laughter and tears. We walk with, not through, grief. And hold loss and hope in each of our hands, praying for an eternal reunion.

Please God let there be an eternal reunion.

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Grief fatigue is a symptom

A check engine light reporting that there is an error in the coding

That sometimes in helping humanity, we can give our own away

Becoming more like steel automatons than humans of flesh and blood, feeling and beholding, growth and trials.

I think our body recognizes when the very essence is slowly dissolving into a stream of chaos

Being endlessly desensitized to the world’s misfortunes.

We must tend to ourselves

We must get it back.

I will fight to turn this heart of stone back into a heart of flesh.

-

A week into my Chaplain residency, I get called into a meeting with my supervisor. Apparently, a coworker had been worried about me, noticing that I had been dazing off during morning debrief meetings, as though something else was pulling my mind away from the room, away from the sanitized walls of the large, Trauma-1 hospital.

This is it, I thought to myself, I’m being let go. I clearly cannot handle the heavy burden of coexisting in a place of so much suffering, so much pain. I’m done for.

I entered the office and was asked to close the door. But when I looked up, my eyes were greeted by my supervisor’s warm smile, one that held both selfless care and deep pain.

She asked a simple question. “How are you?”

My heart raced. Fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine. The rest of the hospital staff seem to think so. God is good, right? Wipe away the tears. I’m fine.

But the tears came in heavy and quick. The first one opening the crack that had been forming in the stone of the dam, now gushing in violent waves. I cried so hard that my shoulders shook. The room shook.

But my supervisor didn’t.

“I don’t get it,” I wept. “We attend these Code blues and end-of-life meetings and hold hands with the sick and try to instill hope into the hopeless. And it’s hard. But no one else seems to think so. The other staff appear to be fine with it. I’m always the one left crying in the aftermath. The one waking up with nightmares. The other staff are able to leave the hospital each day, but I don’t.”

There was a long pause. I squirmed. But my supervisor’s gaze remained locked on me.

Then a single tear left her eye too.

“Devon, I didn’t hire you to be a Chaplain because of your work ethic, promptness, or resume. I made you a Chaplain because of your heart. A heart full of compassion for the weary, strength for the weak, hope for the lost. But most of all, a heart that embodied every good thing that makes a human, human.”

She pondered for a minute.

“Humanity is exactly what this place needs more of. We as Chaplains carry that burden. To show others the gift life is and the hope that follows each of us. I have a challenge for you: next time a patient passes away, I want you to stop the staff and call for a moment of silence to honor the life of the deceased. Can you do that?”

Hesitantly, I agreed.

-

A week passed. I began to think maybe God Himself was preventing me from attending another end-of-life, knowing that I’d probably make a fool of myself by demanding a moment of silence in a room full of RNs and Physicians.

But then it happened.

My pager buzzed hard against the belt loop in which it hung, paralyzing me to the moment. Code Blue. Emergency Room. Car vs. pedestrian.

I arrived in the trauma bay and saw a boy of 16 on the table, receiving chest compressions while a variety of cords and cables pumped him full of medicine trying to jolt his heart awake.

After 20+ minutes, the TOD (Time of Death) was called. 13:06.

Sweating through my shirt, I raised my voice to address the room. I don’t even remember what I said, but it must have been enough for the room to hush to honor the young boy who now lay lifeless on the bed.

I invited the family into the room and after awhile, stepped out to give them space to grieve their loss.

A nurse came up to me and threw her arms around my neck. “Thank you. Thank you so much. You have no idea how much I needed that. The air in there was suffocating. I needed a reason to remember that I was still breathing. That breathing is a gift. That this boy mattered. That we aren’t automatic, but responsive. We are humans. And every life is precious. We must never forget.”