Dear D,

I, Debby, a Chaplain- Intern, stepped into your room on a Monday morning back in September of 2013. You didn’t know me and I didn’t know the first thing about you or your condition. Little did I know that I would have the honor of being able to ac­company you and your dedicated parents on your very long journey and be there with you until you took your last breaths of life.

The cancer you had put you through so much. The days when you were not in the hospital you were in rehab. But most of your days over the past eight months since I have known you have been in the hospital. I visited with you two to three times a week and I think that I got to know you fairly well during this time. Although at times you were not always able to speak verbally with me, we often communicated in other ways.

You had so very much to complain about. As a young man of only 33, eating became difficult for you, speaking became painstaking, going to the bathroom on your own eventually became impossible, walking became laborious, and using your fingers for grasping, emailing, and texting became something of the past. You became familiar with too many floors in the hospi­tal and met way to many doctors and nurs­es. You had procedure upon procedure ac­companied by many sleepless nights. And yet, over the eight months since I knew you, never once did I hear you ever com­plain about your problems.

Sometimes, I would enter your room and I would think, “Today is the day. Today he will let out all of his anger and frustra­tions and describe to me of how he is suf­fering. Today he will break because there is just so much that one person can handle without letting it all out.” And if you would have broken down and cried , I would have thought you were merely just being hu­man. You could have told me that your life was unfair, that you did not deserve what was dealt to you and that you were angry with God. I know you felt comfortable talk­ing to me. You knew you could have said those things and I never would have judged you. The fact that you never did showed me that you were on a different level—a completely different plane. When I would ask you how you were feeling, you would quickly respond with “I am alive.” I specifi­cally remembered one time when I entered your room, when you were able to speak clearly, and you greeted me with a big smile. I said to you, “Wow, D, such a nice smile from you.” Your response to me was, “What’s there not to smile about?” I will al­ways remember those words because they made a lasting impression on me.

I stepped into your life, but you stepped into mine more. I don’t know that I could ever be on your level. To look adversity face to face every day and continue to be as grateful as you were was truly extraordi­nary for me to see. All I can say is that you were a role model to me of an individual who possessed courage, determination, ac­ceptance of a situation with grace and un­derstanding and, more importantly, one who taught appreciation of life by exam­ple. Your memory will forever be etched in my heart.

D, may your special soul find the rest that it deserves and find its place right next to God.

Yours truly,

Debby

By Debby Pfeiffer