Be a Light: In The Hospital Room

Chani was recently graduated.  She worked in Manhattan, counseling hospital patients and their families.  Her natural optimism, as well as the smile that radiated from every part of her, made Chani a perfect fit for the position.  But one case really had her stumped.

    The supervisor had asked her to check in with a certain family.  The room wasn’t on Chani’s route, so it stood out to her as strange when asked to veer from the regular assignment.  However she didn’t dare question the manager’s authority.

Upon arriving, Chani found an elderly man surrounded by wife and children.  This was fairly typical, as was the anguish in the air.  Usually the intensity of the energy would soften as Chani helped get everyone talking.  But this time was different.  This case was far more complex than anything the newbie social worker had encountered. 

The patient needed surgery.  In order to survive the operation and not bleed out, he would need to be taken off of blood thinners.  At the same time, an underlying condition made his blood prone to clotting.  A clot in the wrong place would be deadly.  The people who loved him most in the world were tasked with deciding what to do, but they were just spinning in circles.  When a doctor came in, Chani casually walked over to the window, seemingly in a gesture of respect.

  The only thought in her mind was “Please G-d, I have no idea what to tell them…”  She began to whisper Tehillim. Her lips barely moved. Her heart raced. When the doctor announced his exit, Chani took the opportunity to escape with him. 

On her next shift, a woman came running up the hall calling “Social Worker!  Social Worker!” It was the wife of that complicated patient.  He miraculously made it through surgery with no clotting issues.  But that’s not the most amazing part of the story.  What the woman said next is what really touched Chani, to this day.  She told her, “The doctors are giving us all kinds of explanations.  But I know the real reason my husband is ok.  We’re Jewish too.  I saw you praying at the window, and I know that’s what saved my husband”. 

  The woman had appeared completely secular.  Chani’s actions reached her Neshama.  In that moment, the young social worker understood the spiritual light she could bring. 

They didn’t teach that part in school.