The Power to Choose

As a chaplain, I try to offer patients the opportunity to express—and hopefully relieve—the spiritual angst that might often accompany their physical distress. It requires sensitive listening and letting the patients reveal how they can be helped. I kept this in mind, last year, as I entered a hospital room on one of my regular chaplaincy visits. A young woman was in one of the beds being attended by a nurse. I nodded to her and then turned to the woman lying in the opposite bed, whom I had come to visit. After introducing myself, I asked her if there was anything we could do to help her. She told me she wanted to say a prayer, and so, we prayed together. As we finished praying, I noted that the young woman whom I had initially greeted had been listening to us. I turned toward her as well, and she asked me, “Do you have a prayer for me, Chaplain? I wouldn’t know what to pray for.” With this invitation, I sat down in a nearby chair. After a moment of silence, she began to speak: “This is my eighteenth hospitalization for overdosing on alcohol,” she blurted out. Without prompting, she told her story about being a successful professional who grew up with two alcoholic parents—both medical professionals who were regularly not sober. “I didn’t choose that family,” she said. “But unfortunately, I’m the result of it.” I sat quietly for a moment and then said, “Could I tell you about Taly? She was a woman your age who fought lung cancer, an aggressive adenocarcinoma that occurs in nonsmokers. Although her initial prognosis was dismal (she was given six months to live), she survived for five and a half years, coping courageously with her painful ordeal. Once I asked her, ‘Taly, How do you do it? How do you keep smiling and encouraging all around you?’ She replied, ‘I had no choice in getting cancer. But I have a choice in how to respond to it. I will not give up that choice.’” We both sat silently for a minute or two, and then I said, “Perhaps we should offer a prayer for the ability to choose.” We did, and I left, leaving my card as she requested. Some months had passed and I had put the exchange out of my mind. One day, though, an e-mail with a return address that seemed somehow familiar found itself in my inbox. “Hi Chaplain,” that young woman wrote. “I made it back home safe and sound! I haven’t had a drink. I’m choosing life. Thank you for inspiring me to find this power within myself. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me and unveiling the truth and power in a choice. I too will forever remember Taly’s legacy in my heart and that feeling I received when we spoke in the hospital room. It’s changed my life. I too will help other people see they have a choice to live a beautiful life. Thank you for my new, clear, and unstoppable determination to succeed.” I read the e-mail a few times slowly. Then, wiping a tear, whispered a thanks to my beautiful, strong daughter Taly for what she had taught me and how she helped me help others.