cross posted: https://www.facebook.com/notes/hospicecare-of-the-piedmont/keep-filling-the-other-bucket/10163291389945305/
Dr. Wicker (Nancy Hart Wicker) is a hospice and palliative care physician whose life experiences provide a unique perspective. She is a wife to a Star Wars super-fan and mother to two beautiful, young girls. She enjoys writing about faith, medicine, family, Down syndrome, and adoption. She tries to follow Jesus in all that she does and fights hard for the underdog. She is introverted but loves community and makes time for dinner with friends, reading a good book, and watching bad reality TV.
I have founds these words by @shannanwrites so pertinent in my own times of trials, and I find them even more relevant now through our collective suffering.
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“When I was a kid growing up in the country, I remember my dad teaching us that the best way to carry something heavy is to carry something equally heavy in the other hand. From personal experience, this applies to buckets of water, oversized suitcases, grocery bags filled with cans of Spaghettios, concrete blocks, and dense emotions.
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Decades later, I remain a distracted and forgetful student of balance. Gratitude and sorrow aren’t, as I once believed, mutually exclusive. They actually pair quite well together, one in each hand.
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It can be easy to get caught up in focusing on my own comfort. Or even to ebb into the dark seas of sadness, staring too long at grief and disunity. The trick is to keep filling the other bucket. And the only way that’s possible is Emmanuel, who comes to be with us, who offers the hope of salvation, who calls us to drive our ego, our pride, and our common sense into the dirt as we love each other more. The world says, “Save yourself first!” The Gospel tells of a narrower way where life is found through death, and where gratitude and sorrow twist into an enduring cord of hope.”
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Over the last few weeks, I have seen nursing home residents cut off from their loved ones. I have seen grief and loss complicated by social distancing. I have struggled to provide comfort to patients and families, while minimizing their risk and my own. I have experienced disappointment over PPE shortages and yelled at my kids when they tried to hug me when I first get home from work.
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I have also felt joy and gratitude over the honor I have to care for my patients and extra time at home with my kids. I have been amazed at the creativity this has birthed in our community and in how we care for one another. I have felt so much pride to be part of the healthcare community with so many courageous and beautiful people, particularly those on the front lines.
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Joy and Sorrow. Pain and Victory. Fear and Courage. None of these things are mutually exclusive. They are actually perfectly paired together.