Two Years Later

[Note: This week is the two-year anniversary of this story. And it still feels unbelievable.]

In my 20’s I was a youth minister for eight years at two different churches. I was always fortunate to have volunteer youth sponsors who not only mentored the kids in the youth group, but mentored me as well. These sponsors were mostly older than me, and often had their own kids in the youth group.

Mike Maxson was one such volunteer. Long before I knew Mike, he was an alcoholic and maybe a drug user, but I don’t remember. When he served with me in youth ministry, he was an addictions counselor, ran the sound for our youth worship band, and always took time off work to go on retreats and camps with the high school youth group.

Mike’s daughter, Bre, was one of our favorite kids in the youth group. We first met when my wife, Kristen, and I taught her fourth-grade Sunday school class in the year 2000. Even after I moved on from that church and Bre graduated from high school, we all kept in touch.

Many years later, after I started working as a Chaplaincy supervisor at Parkview, my phone rang. It was Bre Maxson, now a college graduate engaged to a wonderful young man named Joshua Vire. 

“Patrick, I think you know that my dad’s in the hospital,” She said. 

I did. In fact, I had already visited Mike a few times, but missed Bre and Josh.

“And you know that Josh and I are getting married this fall, right?”

I did. And I joked with her that I was offended that she hadn’t asked me to be the officiant, but opted for a friend of mine named Ben.

“Well, we might have an opportunity to fix that for you. You see, they are saying dad doesn’t have long to live. He’s full of cancer. In fact, he might not make it to our wedding date in October, just four months from now. Would it be possible for you to perform a wedding ceremony for us at Parkview?”

At three o’clock that afternoon, my favorite wedding as an officiant occurred on the 7th floor of PRMC.

RTs, RNs, OTs, nutrition services, EVS, and others collaborated to make a beautiful spread including a linen tablecloth, fresh flowers, and a white-iced red velvet cake in Mike’s room. 

Mike gave Bre away and weakly signed as witness on their marriage license.

Four months later, due to some great work from our Palliative care team at Parkview, Mike was still alive, although still full of cancer. He managed to stand up from his wheelchair just long enough to dance with Bre at their previously scheduled (non-hospital) wedding ceremony.

A couple of years later, Mike died with dignity in his home, supported by home health and hospice. This time, with many of the same people in the room, I officiated a funeral instead of a wedding. It was sad and holy. Awful and awesome. Horrible and honorable.

But that’s not the climax of the story. 

Bre and Josh were happily married for five years, but also burdened with infertility. After many doctors’ appointments and failed attempts to start having children, they decided on embryo adoption. Shortly after the world locked down in 2020, Bre became successfully pregnant for the first time. They were thrilled and we were thrilled for them. We kept in touch regularly and attended our first baby shower to be hosted on zoom. Josh is a childhood cancer survivor, and Bre was delicately pregnant, so they committed to a life of isolation until the baby arrived.

In March of 2021, near the end of Bre’s pregnancy, Kristen got a voicemail from her. Bre asked if Kristen could pick her up and take her to an appointment, since their vehicle was low to the ground and hard for her to use so late in pregnancy. But Kristen and I were in Puerto Rico on a vacation, so Kristen texted her in reply and they made plans to connect upon our return. Little did we know what that connection would actually look like.

We got home late that Friday night and went to bed, laden with Dramamine and after-travel fatigue at about midnight. At one o’clock in the morning, my phone rang. It was Chaplain Jana Vastbinder, and she was working overnight at PRMC. This is what I heard.

“Patrick, I know you’re not on call. But this is about Bre. She’s here at the hospital. The baby is fine. But Bre is not. Patrick, Bre is coding in STICU right now. Josh wants to know if you can come.”

Ten minutes later I walked down the STICU hallway. More than thirty staff members rushed in and out of Bre’s room, and Josh sat helplessly behind the nursing module.

Baby Judah was taken via c-section by Dr. Freyre and her team, and now the trauma team, cardiology, and the ECMO team were in full sprint. Bre’s lungs had been assaulted by three massive blood clots. 

The CODE team rode Bre’s bed all the way back to surgery. The clots were removed, she was placed on ECMO, and everything was done that needed to be done. 

In the middle of the night, I realized that baby Judah was in our Family Birthing Center with no mom and no dad because Josh was rightly staying with Bre. No grandparents had arrived yet, and no other family. So, in the middle of a pandemic, while his mom was in the fight of her life, Judah was born into the world to the herald and love of only Parkview coworkers. My wife, Kristen, served patients in our Family Birthing Centers when they experience stillbirth. She had a badge and great relationships on the unit. I asked one of the FBC nurses if she knew Kristen. She did. I asked if she thought the nurses would let Kristen on the floor to be a surrogate family member until others arrived. She did.

There are more details than I have time to recount but permit me one snippet. Late Saturday afternoon, after Bre’s brain death had been declared and shared, after I poured out an angry out loud prayer to God while four physicians, the ECMO team, and PHI nurses all bawled our eyes out, after chaplain Will and chaplain Dan held me as I convulsed in tears, but before Josh said his final goodbye to his bride on this side of Heaven, baby Judah made his first sojourn. Plump and perfect, he left the FBC in the care of RNs and Kristen. When I returned after a short time at home, Judah was snuggled up to his unresponsive mother. He leaned into her shoulder and cheek, not caring one bit that she was intubated and sustained by a huge and loud ECMO machine. As I stood outside the room I noticed that Parkview Public Safety Officer Tyler hadn’t left the nurses station, right across from the door to Bre’s room. Then the penny dropped for me. Judah had his HUGS tag removed when he left the FBC so the alarms didn’t sound. Someone decided that meant he needed a police escort. 

I leaned across the desk, close to officer Tyler. “When you came to work today, I bet you didn’t expect to be security detail for a baby born yesterday, did you?”

“No sir,” he said. “But it’s an honor.

A week later, on Easter Saturday, I was an officiant again. This time, not for Bre’s hospital wedding. Or her dad’s funeral. But for Bre’s funeral.

Many PRMC nurses and doctors came, cried, supported, and loved.

Just over a year later, Judah is a bouncing baby boy who has just learned to walk.

Usually, I don’t really like babies that much, but Judah. Judah is different. He’s special. He’s… perfect.

You see, this is part of what it means to work at a hospital.

It means that you get to see some of life’s most beautiful moments. Birth of a new baby, recovery from injury or illness, reconciliation of family and friends.

And you see some of the worst things in life. Abuse and trauma. Death and destruction. Loss and grief.

It’s never been either/or.

It has always been both/and.

In fact, this is also part of what it means to be human, let alone a healthcare worker.

Today, as you live in the tension of pain and joy. Hell and hope. Dignity and despair. May your heart be expanded enough to make room for it all. 

Because in the same building, a linen tablecloth is spread for an impromptu wedding, and a baby meets and says goodbye to his mother on the same day.

Open your heart to the pain. And open your heart to the joy.