Judges' general comments can be found at the bottom of this entry
 
 
A Christian Death
By Elaine Greensmith Jordan
E-mail= egjordan@cableone.net 
(Copyright 2006)
 
 I rushed into the modest three-storied brick hospital wearing my red jacket and winter boots. Invigorated by the bite of Arizona November cold, as only an immigrant from California can be, I hurried into the third-floor patient room. Jeanine Huff lay in obvious pain on her bed. When she saw me, she
cried, "Oh . . . Elaine . . . help me!" I hesitated, overwhelmed by the
repulsive odor, tempered by a sweet powder smell. "Help me," Jeanine
repeated. I'd not expected this.
 
Being admitted to a deathbed was a privilege of my profession, Christian
ministry. I served a church in a small town. That's not as idyllic as it
sounds. I'd had to accept a post in a rural church because no other
congregation in the southwest would accept a woman as its minister in 1989.
Things had been different two thousand years ago when the followers of Jesus
met in private homes. Back then, women walked with Jesus as equals; they
took roles as leaders of the new Christian sects until the Second Century
when a hierarchy of men rose to power. I know I sound bitter, having been
overlooked for a chance to minister in the centers of power, but I've
overcome resentment due to my experience on the ground in our little church
in Arizona. At the time I made the hospital visit, my anger had been
recycled-until it landed on a pious Christian doctor.
 
Anyway, there I was in a small northern Arizona community where retirees
played golf, tourists visited the charming old town center, and the
conservatives ruled the school board. I loved it. I preached a liberal
Christianity and encouraged people to confront the ethical implications of
war and poverty. We'd organized the church into a thriving fellowship of
people willing to serve each other and the town. I also found the time-in the
quiet of the desert-to indulge a personal goal, finding a moral center in the
chaos of my spirit. 
 
I set my coat, a red memento of the crisp day, across a chair. The crimson
heap looked too cheerful for the misery and distress in the atmosphere of the
white room. Jeanine's body lay naked except for her belly, hidden beneath a
flannel cloth. A nurse hovered for a minute and told me, "It's the cancer. We
can't cover her." She adjusted the cloth, revealing open sores-probably for
me to see so I could understand-and left. Jeanine looked like she'd been
blasted by a bomb. If she'd been on the battlefields of the Gulf War, which
we'd launched that year, medics would be shouting for the paraphernalia of
healing. No surgeons from a MASH Unit came running. Where were the rescuers,
the comforters? Jeanine had only me.
 
I could hardly breathe. Jeanine had been a funny person who'd loved her
husband, now deceased, with a convincing passion, but this was the face of
abandonment. No family or friends stood with me. There must have been more to
Jeanine's story or people would be keeping vigil in this colorless room. What
had she done? I shook off my mordant curiosity with a twinge of
embarrassment. 
 
I leaned over Jeanine's tortured form and said the words of the Twenty-Third
Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd . . . Ye, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no evil . . ." We were in the shadow of
death here, and the words of reassurance seemed hollow: "Thy rod and thy
staff they comfort me . . . He leads me beside still waters." The swollen
patient couldn't hear poetry; her consciousness was given over to suffering
from an open wound. 
 
"Help me. Help me," Jeanine moaned again, her eyes opening and closing. She
was not begging for religious rites. How could she pray, or even stay quiet?
Her body gaped in wretchedness, and her pain was visible in her eyes and
audible in her voice. She looked incapable of explaining her need, but I knew
it was for release. 
 
"Jeanine, I'm so sorry," I whispered. 
 
"Help me," she moaned again. 
 
I wanted to help, make the pain go away. I went to the nurse's station and
waited at a counter decorated for Thanksgiving with paper turkeys and a bowl
of candy corn. When a young nurse looked up, I asked if she could do more to
relieve Jeanine's pain. 
 
"Nothing more to do," she said, looking down at an open ledger. 
 
"But she's suffering so!" I proclaimed, hoping I could be heard by anyone who
might help, maybe the plucky medics from the MASH Unit. "How can you stand to
watch it?" The girl was silent, and I couldn't imagine her thoughts. She
turned a page and I noticed her bitten fingernails. 
 
"Yes she is," said an older nurse at the back of the station. "But Dr. Helms
is the only one who can change orders, and he's opposed to giving her more
morphine." 
 
"Oh. I see." We stared at each other for a second, and the gray-haired woman
looked away first. So that was the issue here, giving a stronger dose of
morphine to end Jeanine's pain and maybe her life. If it had been me, I'd
want to go peacefully, aided by morphine, rather than lie in that agonizing
state. I felt no compunctions about accepting this idea of assisting death.
It seemed the humane answer to suffering. I had to go forward and try to find
help for Jeanine, even help in the extreme. I'd find Doctor Helms and alert
him to the urgent situation. The foolish brown paper turkeys on the counter
watched with indifference. 
 
Before I could ask to use the telephone, I looked up to see the young Dr.
Helms coming down the hall. He looked like Doogie Howser, the teen-aged
doctor I'd seen on television. Helms was my personal physician, and I knew
he'd listen to me, an older person of the cloth, and one with a persuasive,
loud voice. Wishing I'd worn my clerical collar, I fell into step with the
young doctor and asked if Jeanine could be given enough morphine to take away
her pain. 
 
"It's urgent, Doctor. She's crying out," I said.
 
"That much would kill her, Reverend." Doogie moved ahead of me to the nurse's
station and leaned over the counter, hoping I'd take the hint and go away. 
 
I looked down the hall at the door to Jeanine's room. "Does it really
matter?" I heard myself ask. My question was argumentative, I knew, out of
line even, but I didn't understand what could prevent the doctor from helping
Jeanine. Why not relieve her suffering with a merciful dose of pain-killer? A
painless sleep into death seemed the most human, generous, compassionate
thing to do. 
 
Doctor Helms turned and faced me. "You know I can't do that. I'm a Christian." 
 
"But it's awful!" I said, horrified at his answer. I knew the nurses were
watching us. "Her gut's an open wound! You can see it! What difference does
it make?" She needed to go, to make an assisted departure. After all, we'd
let medicine keep her alive, why not let medicine bring peace? I had to be
her voice. She'd asked me to help her.
 
"Elaine, my religious principles forbid my . . ." He moved away from me.
"taking the measures you suggest." The smug turkeys next to his white form
seemed to agree with him, and I resented their betrayal.
 
He thought he had the moral high ground, of course. Strict Christians like
Doctor Helms believe our time of dying is decided only by God. I couldn't
understand how anyone who'd had the least exposure to a protracted death
could believe that. The Christian response to suffering, I believed, was to
alleviate it. Let death come. I was furious at Doctor Helms and his Christian
principles. How could his strict biblical religion-based on forgiveness and
love-prevent him from relieving Jeanine's pain? I felt a flash of moral
superiority over the doctor's limited religious principles and at the same
time was embarrassed for my affiliation with a Christianity that would deny
relief to Jeanine. I wanted to be a Sufi, or Buddhist, even an atheist-not
someone in league with this pious Christian. 
 
Helms walked away from me avoiding the door to Jeanine's room. Seeing him not
bother to check in on Jeanine shocked me more than our exchange of words.
Like the passer-by in The Good Samaritan story, Helms refused to stop and
help. I felt morally vindicated. After all, Jesus had condemned that
passer-by for not seeing in the broken body a life like his own. Helms lacked
the moral imagination to see himself in Jeanine, I decided.
 
The good doctor turned the corner at the end of the hall secure in his belief
that God decided matters of life and death. He knew I wouldn't bother him any
more, that I couldn't keep begging for him to kill Jeanine. Standing at the
nurses' station, I spilled the dish of candy with my elbow-probably an
unconscious gesture of rebellion-and stooped to pick up the scattered corn,
feeling helpless to deal with larger matters. I'd like to say I felt like an
Indian maiden gathering the harvest, but I felt more like a powerless woman
minister on her knees.
 
Back at Jeanine's room, I stood in the doorway but couldn't walk in. I didn't
want to be there any more than her friends and family did. I didn't want to
look on that pain, listen to the moaning, or smell the room. I remembered
Jesus' words, "I was sick and you visited me," and felt guilt, but I couldn't
overcome the odor and sight of Jeanine's pain. Snatching up my red jacket
without taking a breath, I left Jeanine to the nurses and her Christian
doctor, knowing I'd failed a woman who deserved more from him-and from me. 
 
I took the stairs, hurrying downward and away from the smell, the room, the
nurses and turkeys. I put on my jacket, feeling less sure of myself than when
I'd come upon a woman begging for help. Sometimes I go years before getting
it. This time I got it by the time I'd stepped outside into the November
cold. I realized right away I needed more than a feisty righteousness to meet
my commitment-my calling, for God's sake. I'd promised, with my ordination to
Christian ministry, to be a presence at the bedside of suffering and instead
chose to judge hospital personnel. 
 
 
Judges' general comments:
Our judges really liked the concepts Elaine grappled with in this story. The issue of assisted suicide is a HUGE one and certainly one worthy of exploration in a short story. We applaud her look at the doctor’s vantage point versus the ministry—great dichotomy. The idea behind this piece is absolutely her strongest point. The biggest area our judges suggested for the improvement of this story in future drafts would be in showing versus telling. Don’t say someone is happy, let us see them skip into a room. Don’t tell me someone is in pain, show me her skeletal hands gripping the hospital blankets as another wave of death rippled through her body. See the difference? If Elaine can find a way to use this concept and SHOW us how it all happened, she’ll have herself a story that’s worth publishing!